Burnaby's Jeff Taylor will finish in Canadian college volleyball career with a silver medal.
The Douglas College outside hitter and All-Canadian was named a first team all-star following the Royals' 3-1 loss to Humber College in the Canadian Colleges' Association men's volleyball championship final on Saturday.
Humber, with tournament MVP Terrel Bramwell in the front court, took the gold medal 25-21, 30-28, 21-25, 26-24.
"It took an exceptional player on the other side for us to lose, and we didn't play our best match," said Douglas head coach Brad Hudson.
Taylor had 17 blocks, three blocks and two service aces for the Royals, while setter and player of the game Rex Fenton also contributed five kills and four digs. Fenton also garnered a second team all-star nod.
Mark Vanderwal posted 10 kills, four blocks and two aces for Douglas in a tightly played final that went to tiebreaks in two of the four games.
The kids wanted to win, that was our goal," said Hudson. "You can't invest that much in it and not have it hurt, and it's my personality - it hurts to see them hurt. It's going to stick for a while."
Hudson lost his only other appearance in a national college final as a player at then Capilano College.
But the deeper pain was not getting the gold for his fifth-year seniors Kaleb Dawe and Taylor.
"It was important to me to have success with these kids. Our goal was not completely finished," Hudson added.
The No. 2-ranked Royals opened strongly at the nationals hosted at Columbia Bible College with a 3-1 win over Sherbrooke.
Taylor was player of the game in the opener with a thundering 22 kills.
Andrew Robson added 10 kills and two blocks and Sam Shaw added six kills, two blocks, four aces and six digs to the win. Vanderwal also had eight winners.
Shaw, the provincial tournament MVP, also had 10 kills, five digs and two aces to earn player of the game honours in a 3-1 win over the host school in the semifinals.
Drew Ruby came off the bench in the fourth set and registered two momentum-swinging kills and a pair of stuff blocks to close out a tight match 25-23.
Taylor and Robson had 15 and seven kills, respectively. Libero Jordan Or had 27 digs over three matches, including 12 in the win over the defending national champion hosts.
