VANCOUVER - The UBC Thunderbirds welcome the Alberta Golden Bears to War Memorial Gym for a pair of games this Friday and Saturday. First serve is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. both nights and can be seen live on
Sportscanada.tv.
LIVE STATS
A look at the Thunderbirds
The T-Birds go from tough to tougher this week as they follow up their opening weekend series against No. 3 Trinity Western with a pair of matches against the top-ranked Alberta Golden Bears. Both teams medaled in last year's CIS tournament, with the Spartans taking silver while Alberta settled for bronze after winning the Canada West conference.
The 'Birds struggled to find their rhythm against a Spartans squad that was already in mid-season form on opening weekend. The Spartans' lengthy preseason schedule paid off, as they hit .343 as a team and minimized their errors, while the T-Birds looked the part of a team in the early stages of the season, showing signs of strength at times but committing too many mistakes to challenge their opponents consistently. UBC head coach
Richard Schick said his team's serve receiving was one of the main areas needing improvement last weekend.
Demijan Savija led UBC with 3.85 kills-per-game last weekend while also averaging one block. After Savija, their top kill-producers were two newcomers in
Ben Chow and
Milo Warren, who averaged 2.14 and 1.71 respectively. To the surprise of nobody, reigning CIS Libero of the Year
Blair Bann picked up where he left off last year with a 4.29 digs-per-game average on opening weekend, which was a full three digs better than any other T-Bird.
A look at the Golden Bears
The Bears are looking to kick off this season the way they did last year when they opened up with a win over eventual CIS champion Calgary before going on to finish atop the regular season standings and win Canada West. The Dinos got the best of them in the CIS semifinals though, and they had to settle for a third-place finish at nationals behind two other Canada West teams despite being the conference favourites heading into the tournament.
They will be without All-Canadian left side Thomas Jarmoc, who averaged 3.25 kills-per-game to lead the team last year, as well as conference All-Star Mike DeRocco, and his brother Jason, who was third on the team in both kills and digs. That leaves a few big holes to be filled in the Alberta lineup, but they do have some important players returning in CIS tournament All-Star Spencer Leiske and Simon Lidster. Leiske was second on the team during the regular season with 3.19 kills-per-game and stepped his game up even further at nationals to be named an all-star, and he also formed one of the deadliest blocking duos in the league along with Lidster. While Leiske averaged 1.10 blocks-per-game to finish fourth in the conference, Lidster ran away with the blocks lead, averaging 1.51 on the year. They also have fifth-year setter Tanner Nault to step in and run the offence in the absence of Mike DeRocco.
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