VANCOUVER – In a rematch of the 2011 CIS Women's Volleyball Championship final, the No. 1 UBC Thunderbirds defeated the No. 7 Laval Rouge et Or in five sets in exhibition play on Thursday night at War Memorial Gymnasium.
Laval won the first two sets by scores of 25-22 and 26-24 before UBC took the next three, 25-13, 25-20 and 15-13.
“What we like about this is getting a match like this after the long break before we have to play league,” said UBC head coach
Doug Reimer. “This will more mentally prepare us for league play, having had this under our belts.”
Shanice Marcelle's kill on UBC's third match point in the fifth set gave the Thunderbirds the win. Down 3-5 early in the deciding set, a short 4-0 run which saw three Laval errors and a Marcelle service ace, gave UBC a lead it would not relinquish.
The match was sent to a final set after the Thunderbirds took the fourth 25-20. Halfway through, UBC was down by three points, but two kills each from
Rosie Schlagintweit,
Rayel Quiring and
Kyla Richey down the stretch helped the home team past a Laval squad determined to rebound after the third set and take the win.
UBC crushed Laval 25-13 in the third set to stay alive. The Rouge et Or actually led 7-6 early but was quickly overtaken by UBC's balanced attack, which hit at a percentage of .464 in the middle game. The Thunderbirds slowly built up its lead to 15-11 before an
Abbey Keeping kill sparked a run that saw UBC take the next nine of the next 11 points.
“In the third set, we sided out at 92 percent, I have never seen that from us before,” said Reimer.
But the third set performance was needed for UBC to stay alive after dropping the opening two sets.
The Rouge et Or won five of the final six points in the second set to go up 2-0.
The first game saw a back and forth affair where neither team led by more than four points. But with UBC leading 20-18, Laval seven of the next nine points to take the set 25-22.
“The positive side to this is getting in a lot of close sets and coming out on both sides of it,” said Reimer. “Even though you don't like losing those sets, you're actually happy that it forced us to raise our levels of play, which we clearly did at times.”
Richey led UBC with 14 kills in the game, while Quiring had 12. Marcelle had a game-high 14 digs.
Ève Thibault had 17 kills and 13 digs, leading Laval in both categories.
UBC will now begin preparations for the 2012 portion of the Canada West conference schedule.
The first place Thunderbirds (9-1) will host Thompson Rivers for a two-game set next weekend at War Memorial Gymnasium.
