Brock eyes bounce back against McMaster in third straight Quigley Cup meeting

St. Catharines, Ont. – It’s a women’s volleyball finale that fans have become accustomed to, as the Brock Badgers will host the McMaster Marauders for a third straight season, and with both teams having earned a championship win over the previous two editions, all eyes will be on claiming the Quigley Cup rubber match on Friday.

In the latest head-to-head banner season meeting in 2025, McMaster came away with the sweep on the road (25-22, 25-19, 25-18), backed by a game-high 20 points from now graduated Sullie Sundara and another 14 from Olivia Julien. The year prior, it was the Badgers who earned a four-set victory (22-25, 25-20, 25-21, 25-16), their third of three straight OUA titles overall.

Two members of the Badgers who have been part of these previous head-to-head Quigley Cup meetings were Emily Foest and Mackenna Knox, and both will be relied upon to help get their side back on top.

The former, an OUA all-star for a third straight season, led the Brock offence in more ways than one, and has been a consistent presence among the OUA leaderboards all season long. She wrapped up the 2025-26 campaign earning top-10 marks with 204 kills, 29 service aces, 2.91 kills per set, and 242.5 total points, while also chipping in with 178 digs (2.54 digs per set).

Setting up the Fonthill, Ont. outside hitter on many of those kills, along with the rest of the Badgers roster, has been third-year setter Knox.

Competing in her third OUA Championship, the Burlington, Ont. native enters as one of the top setters in the province. As part of her first team all-star selection, she finished second in the OUA with 8.97 assists per set (565 total, 5th in OUA), while also finishing fourth among setters with 65.5 points on the year.

This duo has been at the forefront of Brock’s previous two postseason wins to date. In their quarterfinal win over Ottawa (25-22, 25-14, 25-15), Foest posted a game-high 11.5 points, while Knox collected 27 assists. The duo followed that up with 12 points and 33 assists, respectively, in their semifinal win over Queen’s (25-21, 25-21, 21-25, 25-22). Madison Tuck also chipped in with a game-high 15.5 points in their penultimate OUA matchup of the season.

Taking on a starring role for McMaster’s postseason push, meanwhile, has been Julien, after posting an all-star quality campaign during the regular season. She finished the year fifth in kills per set (3.53) and tied for fifth with 4.2 points per set, adding 0.41 service aces per set and 2.67 digs per set as well for the 15-win Marauders.

Flipping the page to the postseason, Julien has produced game-high points in both quest for the Cup tilts thus far. She anchored her team’s sweep of Windsor (25-16, 25-18, 25-22) with 14.5 points, to go along with 13 digs, before also pacing the pack with 18 points in their semifinal win over Western (19-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-21).

Fellow outside hitter and former OUA all-star Maddy Lutes joins Julien as a banner season veteran, and will enter her third championship game on the heels of a regular season featuring 2.17 kills per set, 0.37 service aces per set, and 2.53 digs per set. Her contributions to the team, and the OUA, extend beyond the court; however, as she also earned the 2025-26 Champion of EDI Award for the conference.

Looking back even more recently than last year’s final, these two Quigley Cup combatants also went toe-to-toe twice during the regular season, and it was the Badgers coming away victorious in both. The two finalists squared off to close out their respective fall semester schedules, with Brock dropping just one set combined across the two matches, extending their league-best record to 9-1 at the time.

It was a team effort that guided the St. Catharines squad to victory, with four players – Foest, Tuck, Charlotte Ross, and Emma Baruchelli – reaching the double-digit point plateau in the first half of their back-to-back (30-28, 25-12, 25-17). After a tight first set in the opener, the Badgers parlayed a .371 hitting percentage to a dominant second set showing, before then finishing off the Friday night sweep.

While the Marauders were able to strike first in the rematch the following night, the Badgers once again used a big second set to anchor their eventual win (19-25, 25-15, 25-22, 25-22), and were led by Tuck’s 15 points, 12 digs, and .407 hitting percentage therein.

Julien led the way for the maroon machine in the losses in both games, with Lutes and all-rookie selection Abby Delamare providing the key supporting offence, respectively.

With those two wins in tow, Brock is hoping a third-straight victory is in store for them on Friday in front of their familiar home crowd, but McMaster would like nothing more than to halt that streak in its tracks and take home their fifth OUA title in program history.

Both sides have what it takes to pull out the win and both will enter knowing what it feels like to hoist the Quigley Cup at season’s end. But only one battle-tested recent champion will get to claim victory in this Quigley Cup rubber match and only one will get to relive that title-winning feeling on Friday night at Brock University.