Humber left side hitter Rrezart Sadiku doesn’t mind the pressure of Humber’s first overall ranking and maintaining a win streak of 32 consecutive OCAA matches.
“Our coach says pressure is a privilege and last year put a lot of pressure on us because it was the first historic season. So we look at it that every team that plays us, the pressure’s on them,” Sadiku said last week.
“They got to play their best against us,” he said. “We gotta play our game, they have to play their best game,”
The Hawks are headed to the OCAA Gold Medal game as they look to capture gold on their road to a national championship. The Hawks play in the provincial finals against Redeemer tonight.
Head coach Wayne Wilkins said the team’s success will be dependent on their chemistry.
“As long as we keep all the different sections working together, because they really do interconnect and volleyball is very unique,” Wilkins said. “As long as everyone does their job, we should be good,”
The season has certainly been one to remember. As it had the added challenges of a mid season COVID-19 stoppage, due to the rise of the Omicron variant. The team couldn’t practice together and didn’t play a game for almost two months until they returned to the court in early February.
“It was just not being in the gym, but training. Volleyball is a lot about reps and repetitious behaviour, so the more we get these guys serving balls and passing balls, that’s what we want,” Wilkins said.
“Our training is normally seven months long. We’ve set out a road map to get the guys to the end and unfortunately, we had a hiccup in the middle there. It’s impacted it but we’ll see we won’t really know until we get to a championship,” he said.
Hawks middle blocker Joshua Fadare agreed with his coach, that this season has been tough because of COVID-19, both on and off the court.
“The season has been so on and off, so it’s definitely been different with how things are running, even just schooling as well, so that impacts your mental health,” he said. “It’s a lot of factors that have negatively impacted this season, but we’re pushing through it,”
Fadare has been a key factor for Humber’s undefeated record this season. He led the team in kills, kills per set, hitting percentage and service aces per set.
The confident second-year credits his team for his success.
“We’re just able to click. We work on certain stuff in practice that we put into the game and it’s been paying off,” Fadare said after a blowout 3-0 win over Conestoga on Feb. 26.
“Coach always tells us that it’s not really pressure on us, it’s more pressure for the other team to beat us. They have to step into our house and play their best game in order to beat us,” Fadare said.
He oozed that confidence all season as he took home the 2022 OCAA Player of the Year award, the award along with being named a CCAA All-Canadian. He became the third Hawk in history to be named OCAA Player of the Year in Men’s Volleyball.
The Hawks will look to try and keep their streak of 32 consecutive OCAA wins alive and win back-to-back OCAA gold medals as they play the Royals at the OCAA at Canadore College in North Bay, Ont.
Humber students can catch the game at North campus at 8 p.m. or can watch the game on the Humber Sports Network.