Mohawk ends Humber’s two-month long winning streak

KRISTINA RUSSO
SPORTS REPORTER

The Hawks men’s volleyball team was handed their first loss of the season to the Mohawk Mountaineers on Nov. 18.

Humber was coming off a big victory at the Humber Cup going into the game but looked lost from the start.

Although the score was close, Mohawk dominated the first set against a tired Hawks line-up.

“We had a long weekend,” Head Coach Wayne Wilkins said post-game. “We won the tournament, guys were tired and it was great timing on Mohawk’s behalf to come in here and play a game because we had tons of guys that weren’t prepared tonight, that’s for sure.”

Humber bounced back in the second set to tie the game up at one set a piece, and then led for  most of the third game, but let up in the end, allowing the Mountaineers to take it 27-25.

Mohawk went on to win the fourth and final set, closing the game out with a 3-1 final.

Mohawk player Mitchell Sawatsky, 19, was excited after the win and commented on handing Humber their first loss of the season.

“It feels really good actually,” he said. “This shows just how we can play and that we can compete with some of the best teams in the league.”

Hawks veteran Brendan Wong, 25, wasn’t making any excuses for the loss.

“We just had an off day, we didn’t play well at all,” he said. “We’re conditioned athletes; we should be prepared for situations like this. I guess you could call it fatigue, but I wasn’t tired, I was ready.”

Wilkins felt that there were a lot of costly mistakes made by his team.

“We had almost 27 unforced errors, so there’s 27 points we gave them without them having to earn it,” he said. “Out of four sets, that’s incredible.”

Both Wong and Wilkins said the team needs to start working harder in practice.

“We haven’t been practicing as hard as we have been in the past,” Wong said. “The success has been good but we have to come back down to Earth now and start to bring it again.”