Box Score
QUEBEC CITY -- Ashley Norfleet scored a game-high 18 points, including 17 kills and one stuff block, but that was insufficient as the McGill women's volleyball team fell 3-1 to No.7-ranked Laval at the Centre PEPS in the provincial capital, Saturday. The set scores for Laval were 25-16, 25-14, 19-25 and 26-24.

Laval had a 62-54 edge in kills with both sides registering three service aces. McGill held a 10-3 margin in stuff blocks and 95-87 advantage in digs. The most telling stat was ball-handling errors -- McGill had seven, Laval none.

"The first two sets, we were too tentative and had an uncharacteristically high number of ball-handling errors," explained Martlets head coach Rachele Beliveau. We made some adjustments and line-up changes in the third set and that made a difference as we won by six. We almost had them in the fourth set. We have to break that pattern of sitting back and waiting over the first two sets and need to be more aggressive and competitive from the start."

Marie-Pier Durivage, with 16 points and Marie-Christine Lapointe (10) also reached double figures in scoring for the Martlets. Durivage posted 10 kills, a game-high six total blocks and one dig, while Lapointe had nine kills and an ace, to go along with a game-high 21 digs.

Valerie Lemay was one of five Laval players to reach double figures with 15 points. She led a balanced Rouge et Or attack with 15 kills.

Laval now shares the RSEQ conference lead with the Montreal Carabins. Both teams have identical 12-3 records with four games remaining before playoffs.

Third-place McGill, which dropped to 9-6, remains in the last playoff berth, four points ahead of Sherbrooke (7-8). McGill's magic number to clinch the final spot is still four points (i.e. two wins). The Martlets remaining schedule includes games at Montreal (Jan. 24), at home to both Laval (Jan. 26) and Montreal (Jan. 31), then they will close out at Sherbrooke (Feb. 2).