VANCOUVER – A top five battle in Edmonton went to the home team on Friday night.
The No. 5 UBC Thunderbirds men's volleyball team lost in four sets (25-21, 25-18, 17-25 and 25-15) to the No. 3 Alberta Golden Bears in Canada West regular season action.
UBC was led by sophomore outside hitter
David Zeyha (3rd, Grande Prairie, AB), who had a match high 15 kills.
Robert Bennett (5th, Vancouver, BC) and
Jarrid Ireland (1st, Winnipeg, MB) each chipped in with nine kills.
Fourth year left-side Taylor Hunt had 14 kills for Alberta, while Mitch Irvine was close behind with 12.
“The unfortunate thing is that it was very similar to our Saturday match versus Calgary where we came out strong and didn't continue to put the pressure on Alberta when we were up by a bunch of points,” said UBC head coach
Richard Schick. “Good teams push back and we seemed surprised that they just didn't roll over. Each one of us has to look at what we did out there tonight, good and bad, and take responsibility for our play and learn from it.”
Ireland's second kill of the first set put UBC up 11-4. But the Golden Bears rallied to tie the set at 19, before taking six of the next eight points for the win.
The Thunderbirds trailed from the first point of the second set, before dropping it 18-25.
Zeyha and the 'Birds made it interesting in the third, scoring a 25-17 win thanks in large part to Zeyha's seven kills, as well as three by Bennett.
In the fourth set, the teams were close through the first 11 points, but Alberta began to pull away from there on out, opening up a big lead at the technical and cruising to a 25-15 set win, and a four set victory.
“We had our flashes of brilliance but we did not maintain enough flow to put consistent pressure on the Bears,” said Schick. “We have to be hungrier and more aggressive. We have to do that each and every practice, each and every match. We get another chance tomorrow night versus the same team.”
The first serve on Saturday night between UBC (6-3) and Alberta (8-1) will be at 5:00 p.m.
- with files from Matt Gutsch (Alberta Sports Information Director)
