Ulster defeat Queens to Progress in British Universities

The Ulster Elks took on Queens University this past Wednesday in the Northern Ireland Conferenceof the British Universities Championships.  It was a hard, fought match between both teams.  Not only are both teams rivals with each other, but this was an elimination match.  The winner would advance to the last 16 round of the British Universities Championship.

The first set started out as a battle.  Both teams stayed neck and neck for the first 18 points.  There were several lead changes, and some very long and exciting rallies.  The Ulster Elks managed to pull away with the lead late in the first set and reached 25 points first.

Set 2 was dominated by Queens from the very beginning.  Queens jumped out with an early lead and never gave it up.   They were ahead 7 - 2 when the Elks took their first time out.  Throughout the entire set, Queens forced the Elks to make many unforced errors.  The Elks missed a lot of serves and had a hard time keeping the ball in play.

The Elks regained their composer in set 3 and beat Queens by one of the largest margins of the match.   Strong defense and tough serving helped The Elks win the set 25 - 15.

Both teams came out strong in set 4.  However, by the middle of the set, The Elks managed to pull away with a 16 - 11 point lead.   Queens tried to stop The Elks momentum by calling their second timeout but The Elks never looked back, winning the set 25-19 and taking the match 3-1.

Setter Mark Fulton ran The Elks offense with precision and smoothness.  Fulton picked apart Queens Defense by continually setting Middle Blocker Adam Bell. Bell seemed to be able to terminate every set he got which kept the Queens Defense guessing and on their heels.

Coach Tim Johnson was quoted as saying “I’m very happy with how the guys played tonight.  We were very disciplined on defense which forced Queens’s offensive to give us a lot of off speed balls.  When we get a lot of off speeds balls it makes our transition from defense to offense a lot easier.  It also gives our offense more opportunities to score points.”