Exhibition Game

Every year the men’s volleyball program starts in a similar way with scheduled exhibition games against a number of University (OUA) teams. It is very well known that University teams are typically better than college team for a number of reasons. A typical college team practices two to three times per week, where a university team practices four to five times per week. The extra touches from those practices makes them more ‘crisp’ as there games are usually sharper. University teams also usually get the prized recruits who want to attend University as apposed to a college. This is not always the case but from my experience is definitely what happens. Another reason as to why university teams are usually better is because of the competition that they usually face. In the OCAA, there are roughly twenty men’s teams but maybe the top three or four teams (depending on how strong a year it is in the OCAA) could compete in the OUA against university teams. So whenever a college team plays a university team, the college team definitely has something to prove and wants to play well. We played against York last season, and we had a lead in every set but failed to close out any of the games losing 3-0. We were disappointed in our result because we felt like we were the better team but just failed to finish strong. The practices following that game did we ever spend a lot of time doing drills trying to close out games. Needless to say it was a learning experience that we as a team grew from. Fast forward to this year, and the Humber guys are playing the York Lions and it’s always a good test to see where you stand compared to the OUA teams. You know if you can compete with a University team in Ontario, then you’ll have a good chance of winning and competing for the OCAA championship. This year’s game had a lot of hype with two young superstars, Terrel Bramwell and Ray Szeto facing off. Ray is one of Ontario’s top high school recruits who played for Team Ontario over the summer and will be looked upon to carry York this year. It will be interesting to see how Humber plays and to see if they can come out victorious.