QUEBEC CITY -- Claire Vercheval scored a game-high 18.5 points but it proved insufficient as Laval rallied for a 3-2 victory over visiting McGill in a topsy-turvy women's volleyball game, Sunday, at the Centre PEPS.

The set scores were 25-17, 12-25, 17-25, 30-28 and 15-7 in a lengthy contest that featured 10 lead changes and took two hours and 13 minutes to play.

"We should have never lost that fourth set," said McGill head coach Rachele Beliveau, whose troops saw a 16-12 lead transform into a wild 30-28 setback. "I think that we missed three serves and a couple of easy stuff blocks in that sequence. Laval went (on a run) and we fought back but it didn't turn out in our favour. Then in the fifth set, we just couldn't adjust. Laval is a good team and will always fight hard until the end. After losing that fourth set, we seemed to lose our confidence."

McGill led in almost every key statistic except on the scoreboard. The Martlets had the advantage in kills (54-47), aces (9-8), stuff blocks (14-8), digs (122-111) and assists (51-43).

Marianne St-Aubin paced Laval with 18 points, on the strength of 15 kills, while teammates Maud Chapleau and Anne-Sophie Tanguay added 12 and 11 points, respectively.

Vercheval, a physical education senior from Ste. Julie, Que., was one of five Martlets to reach double digits in scoring for the second consecutive game. She registered 17 kills, one ace and one assisted block to go along with 21 digs.

Also reaching double figures in a losing cause were seniors Myriam Robitaille (14 pts), Elisabeth Perrault (12 pts) and Rowan Fletcher (11 pts, 26 digs), along with sophomore Charlene Robitaille (10 pts).

Setter Andreanne Tremblay, a junior from Longueuil, Que., had a second consecutive impressive outing with a game-high 38 assists, 22 digs, four kills, three aces and three assisted blocks.

McGill, which dropped to fifth place in the six-team Quebec conference with a 3-5 record, will host third-place UQAM (4-2) on Friday, Nov. 15 at 6:30 p.m. Second-place Laval (5-2) will travel to a showdown against division-leading Montreal (5-1) on the same date.

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