LANGLEY, B.C. - The No. 7-ranked UBC Thunderbirds (1-2) lost 3-2 (21-25, 25-22, 25-22, 20-25, 15-9) Friday night to the No. 10-ranked Trinity Western Spartans at the brand new Langley Events Centre.

A back-and-forth affair finally came to end as the Spartans had their best set of the match in the fifth and final frame while the T-Birds struggled to find any success on offence.

TWU notched 10 kills and just one error on 20 attacks in the fifth set while UBC had six kills and five errors on 24 attempts.

"We got off pace execution wise with what we wanted to do as the match went on," said UBC head coach Richard Schick.  "TWU started to play a bit better and for whatever reason we were a bit shocked by that.  It was really us shooting ourselves in the foot with some of the smaller things out there tonight.  As was the case last week we are just trying to get more complete games out of guys."

UBC led early 2-1 but fell behind 5-3 after three straight kills from TWU.  The pulled back to within one at 6-5 on a Spartans service error but three straight attack errors by UBC allowed the hosts to take a commanding 10-5 lead before closing out the final set 15-9.

Demijan Savija led UBC with 16 kills but hit for just .094 with Robert Bennett also struggling with efficiency at just .111 with 11 kills.  Middle Joe Cordonier was near perfect notching 11 kills on 12 attacks without an error.  Setter Ryan Zwarich had 50 set assists while Blair Bann had a game high 20 digs.

Steven Marshall had a game high 19 kills for the Spartans with Marc Howatson (13), Rudy Verhoeff (12), and Josh Doornebal (10) all reaching double figures in kills.

"We had a couple guys who came into the game with some injuries or illness and for them to gut it out for five sets tonight was good for us," added Schick.

UBC took control of the first set with a pair of runs coming out of the technical timeouts to lead 18-11. TWU fought back and got the score to 21-19 but they couldn't close the gap any more as Cordonier closed the set with a big kill.

The T-Birds came out strong again in the second set and led 8-5 before the Spartans were able to even the score. Two sides traded blows until a four point TWU run gave the hosts a 21-17 lead.  UBC found a way to even the score on four straight points but TWU responded with their own three-point run to close out the set.

The third frame was all tWU early and despite a small push from the T-Birds late in the set, the visitors never got the deficit down to less than two and saw TWU take a 2-1 lead.

It was even early in the fourth before UBC pulled in front for good with a three point surge to make it 14-11 and they stayed ahead the rest of the way en route to a 25-20 set win.

"Much like last weekend against Winnipeg we have to regroup, refocus and come out with a strong game tomorrow night.  We are going to have to play better and I know that we will."

The two teams are set to square off on Saturday with the match starting at 7 p.m.