The Falcons Men’s Volleyball traveled to Cambrian, where they finished off their season in the OCAA Championship, marking their third year with a podium finish and bringing home a bronze medal.
“We would have loved to have been in the gold medal game. But I suppose third out of the 20 teams in our league isn’t too bad. But we’d love to get back to the late 2010s when we were Bringing home banners” shared head coach Patrick Johnston.
The Falcons began the tournament with a challenging semi-final match against the No. 3 ranked Humber Hawks who were aiming for their fifth OCAA title in a row. Despite strong efforts from the Falcons, they were defeated 3-0 by the eventual champions.
The Falcons had a tough climb to OCAA this season after experiencing several setbacks from injuries.
“We had some hiccups with tremendous injuries. We had a broken foot, two broken thumbs, broken ribs, a broken arm that took multiple surgeries. It wasn’t until February that we had the same lineup for two consecutive matches,” added Coach Johnston.
Some of the injuries were complete fluke accidents and a streak of bad luck.
Although they didn’t make it to the final, the Falcons were determined to secure a podium finish and faced the St. Clair Saints, who had already upset multiple teams to reach the final four.
The match was an intense match, with both teams splitting the first two sets. However, the birds dominated the third set and went on to win the match 3-1, claiming the OCAA bronze medal.
“The guys had their sights pretty set on gold. Humber played incredibly well in the semi and there really wasn’t a ton of out-rate disappointment. It was kind of the mindset of if a team can play that well they deserve to win and so that was a weird feeling postgame because usually you feel like you could have done this or could have done this. It just kind of was what it was,” shared coach Johnston, “We have a really strong core back. and lots of good recruits coming in. Humber who beat us, are graduating their whole starting line. Everyone’s gone. So this was like the peak of their cycle. So that’s great news for us.”
With a clean slate ahead of them, the birds look forward to bringing their best next season.
