The Alpha Omega Delta Lions and the Pi Gamma Delta Royals battled Saturday morning on the volleyball court. The Royals triumphed over Omega, beating them by one round. Both Pi Gamma and Omega played with only five players, giving the teams more ground to cover.
The Lions ran off with the lead in the first game and left Pi Gamma trailing behind. The Royals tried to pick up their pace, but Omega maintained the lead and wouldn’t let go. Pi Gamma held on to their four-point deficit and refused to go down any further, but Omega won the first game, 25-21, after an out-of-bounds serve by the Royals.
The Royals picked themselves up in the second round, determined to take down the Omega Lions.
Omega started off with a one-point lead. They didn’t hold on for long, though, as the Royals began tallying points. Bad passes and out-of-bounds spikes plagued the Lions, ultimately costing them the win in the second game. The Lions called a timeout, hoping to regain composure and hold the series to only two games. Omega and the Royals jumped right back onto the court ready to go, but Omega continued to fall behind the locked-in Royals. Pi Gamma blew the Lions away, winning the second game 11-25.
In the third and final game, the Royals once again dominated the court, beating Omega 15-7.
Omega’s Caleb McQuaid said, “I think we surprised Pi Gamma and ourselves by playing so well with only five people. But after game one, Pi Gamma cut down on their mistakes and played very clean volleyball in games two and three.”
Pi Gamma advanced to the playoffs with the win and the Lions went home, finished for the season.
Royals’ Zoren Rierson said his team struggled in the first set but after a pep talk, they came back ready to play. “We played some of our best volleyball of the whole season with only five players,” Rierson said. “The third set, we just ran away with it. I was so proud of our guys.”
Rierson said it takes a lot of adjustment when a team doesn’t have six players out on the court. “For [our players] to adjust quickly and to come back from losing the first set is really huge,” he said, “especially with a team of mostly freshman. I was really proud of how we played.”