Box Score The Varsity Blues men's volleyball team fell to the Nipissing Lakers 3-1 (25-12, 21-25, 19-25, 19-25) on Saturday afternoon (Jan 20.) at Goldring Centre.

Jordan Figueira started the match with back-to-back aces and continued the serving clinic when he got the ball back in his hands. The second-year student slammed six straight aces to put Toronto up 16-6 at the technical timeout. Figueira registered a career-high eight aces in the match, which was one shy from his season total (9).

The Blues maintained the momentum out of the break to take the first set 25-12.

Toronto jumped out to an early 7-2 lead in the next set, but Nipissing's Cameron Branch brought his team back. He registered four kills to cut the deficit to 16-13 at the break. The Lakers capped off the comeback going on a 10-3 run to grab the second set 25-21 and tie the match at 1-1.

Unlike their first meeting when Nipissing won in straight sets in early November, the battle remained close at the beginning of the third set. The lead never hit more than three before the technical time out, but similar to the second set, the Lakers were up 16-13.

Toronto's five errors out of the break helped fuel Nipissing to snag the set 25-19 and take a 2-1 match lead.

The Lakers gain the upper hand early in the fourth set and went into the technical timeout up by five (16-11). Toronto wasn't able to recover as they dropped the set 25-19.
The Varsity Blues record dips to 4-5 on the season, while the Lakers improves to 6-4.

Including his eight aces, Figueira led the team with a season-high 15 digs, while registering 10.5 points. Teammate Nicholas Trewern recorded a team-high 11 kills for a total of 11 points.
Nipissing's Cameron Branch hit a game-high 19 kills on 42 attacks for 20 points.

U of T is back in action tomorrow afternoon when they host their cross town rival York Lions (8-1) in their fourth annual OVA day at Goldring Centre. The match is set to begin at 1:00 p.m.

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