Mathieu Lavoie has never let his size dictate his potential on the volleyball court.

A game-changer at left side for the St. Paul's Crusaders in high school, he was well known for his lethal serve, incredible leaping abilities and leadership skills.

All of these facets were on full display when the Crusaders — led by head coach Lloyd Voth, a Volleyball Manitoba Hall of Famer — won the 2016 Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association (MHSAA) provincial AAAA title. The following year, Lavoie was named the team's MVP as a senior.

"I was an undersized player, which has been a trend throughout my entire career," he says.  

"I figured as a shorter player that I wouldn't go to the next level as a hitter. That's something that I understood, so I had to make sure that I focused really hard on my defensive positioning, my passing and my serve-receive. I think that definitely brought me to the next level in making sure that all of my fundamentals were very sound."

Lavoie's play caught the eye of the Dalhousie Tigers, who brought him into the fold for the 2017-18 season as a libero.

He saw time immediately as a true freshman but struggled at the beginning of the season with the speed of his opposition's serve.

"From high school, it's the serving speed that ramps up and you don't see that type of serving from high school or club volleyball, it's only in university volleyball. That was the biggest change.

The first half of that rookie season it was playing with the odds and making sure that I put myself in a good position to succeed and even if I made the mistakes, I had to make sure that I learned from them. As an athlete you always want to train enough on a skill where you don't have to think about it. At that point I was obligated to think about it because I didn't have a choice."

The turning point for Lavoie came in a tournament game against York over the Christmas break.

"That's really when I figured it out. Seeing some different teams from the OUA serve at me. I'm like this is where I need to be. I can find that variability and I stopped thinking about it. It became easier and easier and tougher serving opponents became less tough."

The back half of the season saw Lavoie's digs per set total increase from 1.1 all the way to 2.2. He ended the year second in the AUS with 108 digs while being named the conference's Rookie of the Year, as well as being selected to the U SPORTS All-Rookie team.

"It was special being recognized as the rookie of the year and being among those top names. Guys like [Saskatchewan outside hitter] Dylan Mortensen, who ended up winning that award, he's a forced to be reckoned with these days and I feel like someday we're both going to be clashing in our fifth years and that's going to be the challenge is that we're both going to be up top there. It's a good reminder that I started off strong and that I have to keep pushing."

The July following his rookie year, Lavoie chose to come home. It had been a tough transition for him academically while at Dal and as a 17-year-old at the time, he felt it would be best to take his talents back to the 204.

"I found that I was mature enough to live on my own but putting everything together was a little overwhelming. On that day in July I just decided I wanted to make things a little bit easier on myself.

I contacted [Bisons head coach] Garth [Pischke] and I'm not sure if he knew much about my play, but he said yeah, we'll take you on. It was pretty seamless. All he had said was to come meet him on the first day of school. Done. Obviously, all of the guys knew me. They made it easy for me to come back home and made me feel included. I ended up being on the court every day helping out."

Due to seeing significant court time while on the east coast, Lavoie was forced to redshirt the 2018-19 season. It ended up working out for the best, as he had the opportunity to re-tool academically in the Faculty of Engineering.

"It made it a lot easier. I would have loved to have played last year, but I think it was better for me to be a redshirt at that point anyways. It was good to be around the guys and be part of the team, but the academic bounce back was really what I was looking for, and that's exactly what I gave myself."

Now in his second year of eligibility, Lavoie has formed a stellar trio at the libero position this season with veteran Kyle Martens and former Mount Royal Cougar Ted Glass. He has ramped up his play over the past two weekends specifically, recording 30 total digs.

"I feel like I'm making a difference. I think I'm getting 2.1 digs and I'm only on the court half the time. I think that's really good for Kyle too, because he can take a mental break.

In the future I'd like to see myself as a full-time libero, but right now our system has been really successful and I just want to keep moving forward with that with Kyle doing his job and me doing mine and both of us getting a break when we need it. It's been good and moving forward I think it's going to be really beneficial for the team."

"We need leadership from [Martens], and we need a real vocal presence on the court from our libero position," added Pischke.

"They coordinate our attack in terms of our formations and passing situations which is really critical to anything our setters do. We expect that out of Kyle and Mathieu and Ted are playing really well as well."