Fanshawe has had a bit of an up and down season after many years of major success in men’s volleyball for Fanshawe College. It wasn’t the easiest road to get into the OCAA tournament but they did manage to squeeze in by upsetting Canadore College last weekend who is the 3rd place team in the east division. The Falcons won 3 straight sets by a score of 30-28, 25-21, and 25-17. This has given them momentum coming into the OCAA championship tournament this weekend, as they play Canadore this afternoon, February 27th, at 3 p.m.
XFM news caught up with the coach of the Fanshawe Falcons men’s volleyball team, Patrick Johnston to ask a few questions regarding Fanshawes first game of the tournament against Conestoga. Conestoga finished 2nd in the West with a record of 15 wins and 4 loses.
We asked Patrick how he felt about having to play Conestoga in the first game of the tournament, he said “We’re taking it one match at a time. We play Conestoga in the OCAA Quarter-Final tomorrow. They’re a really tough opponent, ranked #10 in Canada. We’ll need to play well to get through that, but if we do, we can beat anyone.”
Patrick feels this would give Fanshawe a huge boost if they are able to pull out the victory against Conestoga and would help them get through the rest of the tournament. With so much success coming over the past couple of years for Fanshawes men’s volleyball team this will was a big change as many of the seniors players moved on and it was kind of a year to rebuild and establish new players to take over the team.
I asked Patrick how it has been coaching the team this year and how it has been so different from the last few years, he said “It’s been a lot different from last year where the team was experienced and was settling for nothing less than OCAA/CCAA gold. This year it’s a bit of a rebuild with so many new faces (five freshmen are starting for us). It’s a nice change though, to see so much growth and improvement since September.”
It hasn’t been the same kind of year for Fanshawe’s men’s volleyball team as it was last year. The players on the team and the coaches have had to make many adjustments this year as the goal at the start of the season wasn’t only set on winning gold as that was the main focus in past years. The coaches knew they would have to work with this team as a lot of it is freshman players and with 5 of the 6 starters on the team being freshman. Fanshawe did finish the season with an above 500. Record, finishing with 10 wins and 9 losses and squeezing into the OCAA championships. They play there first game of the tournament this afternoon against Conestoga College who finished 2nd in the West. Anything can happen in single knockout games though and with a few wins they could be looking at another OCAA championship game.
