VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds men's volleyball team lost in straight sets to the UCLA Bruins in exhibition play on Friday night.
The game at the John Wooden Center in Los Angeles was the first of four matches against NCAA schools in southern California.
The Thunderbirds lost the first set 17-25, but were able to edge closer in the next sets, eventually dropping them 21-25 and 23-25 to the 19-time NCAA champions.
"We played against an extremely physical UCLA team tonight which really took it to us," said UBC head coach
Richard Schick. "Even though we out blocked them, the speed of their offence seemed too much for our defence to handle which through us off on our side of the net. We seemed a bit intimidated by the entire atmosphere, which was unfortunate as we let an outstanding opportunity to compete against a very good UCLA team slip away."
UBC came close but was never able to overtake UCLA in a back and forth third set. After cutting the Bruin lead to 12-10, the Thunderbirds didn't trail by more than two points until UCLA went ahead 23-20. A
Robert Gotch (2nd, Calgary, AB) kill and a combo block by
Parker Jobin (3rd, Grande Prairie, AB) and
Chris Klassen (5th, Vancouver, BC) got UBC to within a point (22-23) .
The Thunderbirds fought back after falling behind by six points to UCLA (16-22) to make things close but couldn't complete the comeback.
UCLA recorded a pair of 4-0 runs to break open the first set, allowing the home team to build a 16-10 lead.
"We have to forget about tonight's match and begin to focus on Cal State Northridge," said Schick.
UBC will face Cal State Northridge on Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm.
