Thunderbirds take silver at Queen's tournament

10/16/2011 9:06:00 PM

KINGSTON, ON - The UBC Thunderbirds men's volleyball team had to settle for silver at the Queen's University Coast to Coast Classic after dropping a tough five-set match to league rivals, the Alberta Golden Bears on Sunday.

“The roles were reversed from last night as after winning the first two sets, we relinquished full control of the match to lose the next three,” said UBC head coach Richard Schick. “We seemed to just hit the wall after our eighth match in eight days, having played 34 sets over that period.”

UBC advanced to the championship final with a huge comeback win over Calgary on Saturday. The Thunderbirds overcame a two sets to none deficit to win in five.

That momentum seemed to continue on Sunday against Alberta.

The Thunderbirds looked poised to take home the tournament title after winning the first two sets by scores of 25-22 and 25-17.

“We did a good job in the first couple of sets keeping Alberta's offence under control,” said UBC head coach Richard Schick. ”But as the match progressed, Alberta played more consistently in all aspects of the game.”

That allowed Alberta to take the next two sets, 25-15 and 25-16.

“We weren't patient enough to weather the storm and struggled to find our game after being pushed to a fifth set,” said Schick.

The final set finished 15-6 in favour of the Bears, who are the defending regular season champions of the Canada West conference.

Jarrid Ireland (1st, Winnipeg, MB) led UBC with 13 kills, three digs and four stuff blocks while Ian Perry (2nd, Abbotsford, BC) had 11 digs in the match.

Setter Milan Nikic (1st, Calgary, AB) and middle Yari Kozel (4th, Winnipeg, MB) were named to the tournament all-star team.

The second place finish at the Coast to Coast Classic concludes an eight-day tour of Eastern Canada for UBC.

The team will return home and prepare for its next match, which will take place at noon on October 22 against a team of UBC alumni.

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