Continuing to build on the momentum they established a week ago in Kingston, the Marauders sealed another straightforward win on the road Saturday.
Executing their offence consistently and keeping their opponents off balance throughout, McMaster came away with a 25-20, 25-19, 25-21 win to improve to 3-2 on the season and draw level with Guelph for second in the OUA West division.
In an otherwise tightly-played match, the difference was the Marauders ability to out-hit the Lakers .283 to .010 in the contest, with the visiting squad managing a .524 average in a particularly efficient second set.
Veteran outside Jessie Nairn led all scorers on the day with 15 points and posted 14 kills, while Maddie Lethbridge and Hailey Kranics also found themselves in double digits for points on the afternoon, posting 10.5 and 10 points respectively.
Setter Rebecca Maxwell was credited with 22 assists.
The Marauders jumped out to a 6-2 lead early in the first, set before the home side evened it up at six after an attack error. As the teams approached the technical timeout, the momentum had swung to Nipissing, who led 16-13 at the break.
Nipissing took four of the next seven points to gain a 20-16 lead, before handing the ball back to the Marauders on a Shannon Lebreux service error. From there, Kamila Haase served out the set, with Jessie Nairn notching three kills over the final eight points to take the set victory.
The Lakers jumped out to a 9-4 lead in the second set, which ballooned to 13-7 before the Marauders posted the next seven points, with Rebecca Maxwell serving. During that run, Nairn ripped off another pair of kills. When the teams hit the technical timeout, McMaster held a 16-14 lead.
Following the technical, the Marauders took full control, with Nairn hitting three more kills and the team taking advantage of three Lakers errors, which included set point.
The third set see-sawed into the technical timeout, where the Marauders enjoyed a 16-14 lead. Ultimately, the Marauders proved the steadier team, and Hasse put the final point to bed with a match-winning kill.
McMaster will be back on court on Friday, November 15th at the Tait Gymnasium in North York, when they face the York Lions. The match gets underway at 6:00 PM.
