The Vancouver Island University Mariners won the last match of the season, and not a lot of teams can say that.
VIU’s women’s volleyball team earned bronze medals at the Canadian Colleges’ Athletic Association championships last week at Toronto’s Seneca College.
The M’s finished up with a five-set victory over the College F-X Garneau Élans in Saturday’s bronze-medal match, 21-25, 21-25, 25-22, 25-18, 15-12.
VIU began the tourney Thursday with a win over the Mount St. Vincent University Mystics, but lost to the Red Deer Queens the next day to drop out of gold-medal contention. The Mariners beat the Seneca Sting to reach the bronze-medal match.
Leanna Gildersleeve, who led the M’s with 15 kills in that match, was a first-team all-star at nationals and Alyssa Wolf was selected a second-team all-star. Gildersleeve, Wolf and Tylar Turnbull earned player of the game distinctions and Gildersleeve and Ashley Van Acken were honoured as All-Canadians at a CCAA awards banquet last week.