VANCOUVER - The top-ranked UBC Thunderbirds boosted their record to 10-1 in their first game back from the break, using a huge blocking effort to top the Thompson Rivers WolfPack 3-0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-21) on Friday night at War Memorial Gym.
The T-Birds entered the contest as the top blocking team in Canada West, and they certainly looked the part on Friday. UBC posted 18 blocks in the three-set match, including nine in just the second frame.
A few flurries of unforced errors early in the first set and midway through the third were the only blemishes on an otherwise dominant UBC performance. They finished the night with a .216 hitting percentage while holding Thompson Rivers to .000 thanks to the monster blocking effort.
"That's a lot of blocking points," UBC head coach
Doug Reimer acknowledged with a smile. "We did a good job taking away some of their offence today. There were a number of areas of play where I thought we were really solid, but then we were giving a way too many points too. I look at that third set and just think we could have been steadier. We have to reduce our unforced errors and make Thompson Rivers beat us for every point."
The second set was the most well-rounded for the 'Birds, as they committed just two errors and posted half of their blocks in the frame.
Kyla Richey had four kills on just six attacks in the frame, and middle
Jessica von Schilling earned five of her seven block assists in the second set.
Richey finished with a match-high 12 kills on .304 hitting, adding six digs, seven block assists and one solo block, in addition to a solid serving performance that earned her two aces.
"Very efficient offensive performance and the numbers could easily have been higher," Reimer said of his star outside hitter. "She tipped a couple balls out of bounds that she can clean up easily, and when you look at her numbers across the board, she served the ball well, she was great passing and she was in on eight blocks, so without question she contributed in every area of the game on a lot of points."
Setter
Brina Derksen-Bergen wound up with 28 assists and also got involved in the blocking effort in a major way, finishing tied with Richey at seven block assists and one solo block.
Lisa Barclay had 10 kills and was in on six blocks as well for UBC.
Anne Weiss led the WolfPack with six kills, and Amanda Frayne, Katarina Osadchuck and Kelly Asleson all had five. Osadchuck was also in on four of the team's six blocks.
The WolfPack drop to 4-9 on the year and will look to regroup tomorrow when they wrap up their weekend series at UBC. Game two starts at 5 p.m. on Saturday in War Memorial Gym.
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