The start to the 2016 portion of the schedule might be one the Nipissing Lakers men's volleyball team wants to forget.

After a tough loss Friday where they didn't play the way they're capable, or how they had been playing, the Lakers came out Saturday afternoon with a new mindset and it seemed to work at times, but not enough to pick up a win.

The Toronto Varsity Blues outlasted the Lakers and came away with the 3-1 win to send the Lakers to their second straight loss.

Nipissing opened the match up with a solid 25-19 win and seemed to be in a solid position to make a run towards avenging a loss the night before.

Unfortunately, the Blues had other ideas, as they took home the next three sets, on their way to the win.

Nipissing even got out to a great start in the second set, opening up a 4-0 lead and were up 6-2 before Toronto started their comeback.

Once they took over, they controlled the rest of the set, despite the Lakers hanging tough.

It was 16-16 before Toronto truly laid claim to the win and finished things up at 25-19.

It was a similar story in the third, with the Lakers hanging tough for a while, but they trailed 11-8 and would not come closer than four points behind the rest of the way, ahead of the 25-19 final once again.

In the fourth and what turned out to be final set, the Lakers were right in it and actually held the lead late, but Toronto ran away with things in the final few points, picking up the 25-20 win and the match.

While it's far from the end of the world, it wasn't what the Lakers were hoping or planning on happening when they hit the court to kick off the second half of the OUA season.

Leading the Lakers was Cam Branch with 24 kills, Lyndon Sonego added 18 and Jack Peckham chipped in with five.

The Lakers are on the road next weekend, heading on a long trip to Kingston to take on the RMC Paladins and Queens Gaels.