OTTAWA’S TOP-RANKED OFFENSE FLEXES ITS MUSCLE AGAINST THE THUNDERWOLVES AND BOLD
As the OUA playoff picture starts to come into clearer focus, a strong 3-1 showing over back to back weekends on the road has the Gee-Gees at 6-2, tied for third in the OUA and just one game back of first.
Thriving in Thunder Bay
The Gee-Gees took on the Lakehead Thunderwolves on Nov. 14 and 15, beating them twice in a reversal of fortunes from 2024. A year ago, the Gee-Gees lost both matches against Lakehead by 3-1 scorelines, which were massive blows to their playoff hopes. Refusing to make the same mistake again, Ottawa took care of business on the back of service pressure and fantastic play by outside hitters Camryn Giddens and Audrey Odigie.
Giddens and Odigie each posted double-digit kills in both matches, with Odigie putting up an eye-popping – and season-high – 29 kills in Saturday’s match. While we’ve practically come to expect a double-double from her, Giddens’ performances were an encouraging sign, as those were her first 10+ kill games of the season.
Having a P2 able to consistently score 2.5+ kills/set completely opens up the Gee-Gees offense. That was Nicole Hildrebrand’s role for Ottawa last season, but with her shift back to the right side, Giddens’ growth (she’s up to 2.59 k/s!) is a primary contributor to the Gee-Gees being able to boast the #1 offense in the province, averaging 16.9 points scored per set.
Hildebrand’s stabilization of the right side position for Ottawa is another important factor in that equation. While her counting stats have taken a small dip (2.48 k/s vs. 2.78 k/s in 2024), her efficiency has jumped from .172 per cent to .202 per cent. She’s making far fewer errors and scoring nearly as much, certainly a recipe for success.
The Gee-Gees also continued the excellent serving they’ve displayed this season, hitting 14 aces on Friday and 12 on Saturday. They missed 12 and 13 serves, respectively, but a positive ace-to-error ratio is fantastic and further proof that they’ve adopted an aggressive – but largely consistent – mindset from the service line: they’re currently tied for first in aces in the OUA with Waterloo, but have committed 41 fewer errors than the Warriors.
Ottawa’s middle blockers put on a blocking clinic throughout the Lakehead matches, each taking their turn to dominate a game at the net. On Friday, it was Keely Lloyd with two solo blocks and four block assists, while on Saturday, Christine Hachokake had two solos and one block assist.
Not to be outdone, libero Jess Goodman elevated herself into the conversation as one of the best defensive players in the province, racking up 30 digs on Friday to now sit first overall in digs/set, with 4.00.
A true team effort, the Gee-Gees took care of the Thunderwolves with relative ease.
Game 1: Gee-Gees 3, Thunderwolves 1 (25-20, 25-22, 22-25, 25-21)
Gee-Gees Player of the Game: Camyrn Giddens (17 kills, .256 efficiency, 1.5 blocks, 10 digs)
Game 2: Gee-Gees 3, Thunderwolves 1 (19-25, 25-18, 25-19, 25-21)
Gee-Gees Player of the Game: Audrey Odigie (29 kills, .293 efficiency, 3 blocks, 11 digs)
Woods secures 300th career win, Gee-Gees split with TMU
The second leg of the Gee-Gees road trip (with a stop back in Ottawa during the week for classes, of course) was in downtown Toronto on Nov. 21 and 22, when they visited the TMU Bold.
The two teams went to five sets in both of their 2024 encounters, each winning once. While there were far fewer sets of volleyball played this time around, the results in the standings were the same.
Ottawa came out of the game hot, winning a 3-1 decision on Friday in what was the 300th career victory for Gee-Gees head coach Lionel Woods. Woods has served as head coach since the 1991-92 season, winning two OUA titles in that time.
The load was shared offensively, with four Gee-Gees tallying eight kills or more. Odigie (14), Giddens (10), Hachokake (9) and Hildebrand (8) lifted Ottawa to victory, as did more clutch serving from setter and serving specialist Tara Gosling.
At this point, it feels like the script writers have gotten lazy. Gosling, seemingly for the fifteenth time in her short Gee-Gees career, put together more lengthy serving streaks to stave off set points and ultimately win the set for her team.
In the second set on Friday, after losing the first set and while trailing 24-23, Gosling put three serves in to pull the team ahead to win 26-24 – though credit is due to middle blocker Jessica Schmid who had a kill and a block in that sequence.
Unbelievably, just 25 minutes later, Gosling did it again. This time down 24-20, she hit SIX consecutive serves and willed her team to a come-from-behind win once again.
Gosling has now had three separate instances in just one and a half seasons where she’s brought her team from down 24-20 to a set victory: last year against Windsor, and this year against Toronto and TMU. Crazy stuff.
The Gee-Gees closed out Friday’s victory comfortably with a 25-16 win in the fourth, but things didn’t come so easily on Saturday. It was a true off day for Ottawa, as the team combined for just 25 kills over three sets, and hit a measly .009 due to their 24 errors.
For the first time all season, Odigie failed to reach 10 kills (she had nine), and the Gee-Gees often-praised serving failed to yield results. Just two aces to ten errors weren’t going to cut it, and strong performances from Darcie Buchanan and Kaiya Krahn on the Bold’s side led them to an easy victory where the Gee-Gees never got past 21 points in a set.
Game 1: Gee-Gees 3, Bold 1 (17-25, 26-24, 26-24, 25-16)
Gee-Gees Player of the Game: Christine Hachokake (9 kills, .412 efficiency, 2.5 blocks)
Game 2: Gee-Gees 0, Bold 3 (20-25, 19-25, 21-25)
Gee-Gees Player of the Game: Harper Schaefer (19 assists, 13 digs, 1 ace, 0.5 blocks)
The Gauntlet
The Gee-Gees, with a 6-2 record, are still near the top in the playoff conversation, but the loss to TMU is a tough pill to swallow for a team with aspirations to host an OUA quarterfinal match.
The Gee-Gees have six opponents (12 games) remaining this season, and only two of them have a losing record. They face off with the 6-2 Waterloo Warriors this weekend, then after the holidays they’ll face the 5-3 Western Mustangs, the 6-2 Windsor Lancers (whose only losses are to Western), and the 4-4 Queen’s Gaels (who finished 17-3 a season ago).
Ottawa does have two “easier” opponents in the Trent Excalibur and Nipissing Lakers (both 2-6) in the winter, so the wins available to them should be sufficient to nearly guarantee them a playoff spot, but this roster clearly has the talent and drive to aspire higher than that.
My pre-season predictions had the Gee-Gees at 7-1 by this point in the season, so 6-2 is close to par for the course. However, the quality of play I’ve seen from this team has been better than I had hoped for, and makes me believe that they’ll be able to beat some of the playoff frontrunners in their path.
You can (and should!) catch the Gee-Gees in a huge showdown with the Waterloo Warriors at Montpetit Hall this weekend; 7 p.m. on Nov. 28 and 3 p.m. on Nov. 29.
