EDMONTON - The UBC Thunderbirds fell to the Jason DeRocco-led No.3 University of Alberta Golden Bears has the hosts came closer to claiming first place in Canada West with a straight-sets victory (25-22, 25-17, 25-19), Friday night in Edmonton at the U of A's Main Gym.
Alberta, the defending CIS champions, are now a full game ahead of second-place Calgary, thanks to a straight-sets loss by the Dinos to the Brandon Bobcats on Friday evening. If Alberta wins their final game on Saturday against UBC and Calgary loses any of their three remaining games, the Bears will be crowned the regular season champions of the conference.
Neither team got off to a strong start from the service line, with both teams committing two service errors in the first 10 minutes of the opening set and combining for a total of nine before the set came to a close.
Alberta improved in the second set at the hands of junior left side DeRocco, firing four kills during a 7-2 run to put the Bears up by six.
The T-Birds, on the other hand, were still suffering costly service errors and added eight attack errors to help the home team go up two sets.
UBC managed to keep the score close during the final set, but DeRocco, a Winnipeg native, broke the 19-19 deadlock exploding for three more kills and two block assists to end the match.
DeRocco led all players with 13 kills while his brother Mike had a game-high 31 assists. For the 'Birds, third-year outside hitter
Demijan Savija had eight kills and Vegreville, AB native
Ryan Zwarich had 24 assists.
Both teams finish their regular seasons tomorrow night, starting at 4:30 p.m. PST.
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