TORONTO - The Ryerson men's volleyball team suffered a heartbreaking loss to the No.10 nationally ranked Windsor Lancers in a five-set comeback (25-16, 28-26, 23-25, 17-25, 12-15) on Saturday night. 

The Lancers' pair of outside hitters Pierce Johnson and Sean Spencer led Windsor with 20 and 14 kills and did so quite efficiently, each hitting above the .400 hitting percentage mark. 

The first set was Ryerson's for the taking, as Windsor racked up eight errors with just nine kills. With Ryerson tallying more kills with just two errors, they were able to cruise past the first set winning 25-16. 
The second set was extremely good play from both teams, with the Lancers getting 17 kills on four errors and Ryerson with 16 kills and just one error. In the back-end of the set, both Xander Ketrzynski (Toronto) and Taryq Sani (Scarborough, Ont.) came through and delivered with smart plays that eventually led the Rams to a 28-26 set win. Ketrzynski finished with eight kills in the second set and a game-high of 27. 

The third set consisted of strong defensive play by both teams, with both sides tallying game-highs in attempts, but neither team finding nearly as many kills. The set's defence was highlighted by Rams middle blocker Navreet Suhan (Mississauga, Ont.), who came up with multiple blocks in this back-and-forth set. 

The Lancers kept the Rams in the set with a multitude of errors, but in the end, they found what it took to initiate a comeback and took the third set 25-23. 

Momentum began to swing even more for Windsor, as they dominated the Rams in the fourth set and took it 25-17. Lancers Johnson and Spencer had five kills each in this quick set.

The fifth set started with a 8-3 run made by the Lancers, but the Rams showed resilience with a couple of huge blocks down the stretch to make it 12-12. The Lancers, however, still proved to be the hotter team and took the last set 15-12. 

Rams outside hitter Sani unfamiliarly struggled with his serves against the Lancers, racking up seven service errors with no aces to go with them. Rams left-side Greg Vukets (Auckland, New Zealand) was also shut-down at the net, tallying up just 7 kills on 23 attempts. 

"They made a couple of adjustments on us, and we did not respond with any adjustments of our own," said Rams lead assistant coach Niko Rukavina.

Despite the home crowd, Ryerson's home fans were outnumbered by Lancer fans, who were loud and helped fuel Windsor's comeback against the Rams. "The crowd was more in Windsor's favor than Ryerson's, we don't really see that at all at home games."

Rukavina capped off by saying, "it's still early in the semester and we have a lot to work on."

Catch the Rams back on the court this Friday against the top seed McMaster Marauders at 8 p.m. on OUA.tv from Hamilton.