Vancouver, BC - The UBC Men's Volleyball team lost in five sets to Thompson Rivers in the final of the Thunderball Tournament at War Memorial Gym Saturday night. The WolfPack, who lost earlier in the day to UBC, won 25-22, 23-25, 25-19, 18-25, 15-11.
"Tonight it was very similar to our match against Manitoba last night, both teams who got up stayed up. There were no collapses towards the end of sets by either team," said UBC head coach
Richard Schick. "We are upset with the result, but not upset with the fight or the decisions we made out there."
Heading into the final, the Thunderbirds were a perfect 3-0 in the tournament defeating Guelph, Manitoba, and Thompson Rivers in round robin play. In fact they beat the WolfPack 3-1 Saturday afternoon. The final though was a different story as the WolfPack came out strong taking the first set 25-22.
In the second set the Thunderbirds took the lead from the outset and squeezed out a 25-23 victory, before going down two sets to one after losing the third set 25-19. The third set saw five lead changes and was tied 12 times.
Once again UBC would not show any quit, taking the fourth set 25-18 to force and fifth and decicing set.
The WolfPack controlled the set from the beginning and would go on to win 15-11.
"We knew Thompson Rivers was going to be gritty as every Canada West team is," said Schick. "I was proud of the way we competed being down 2-1 and coming back in the fourth. We got in to a tough funk in serve/receive that we have to address, but i was happy with what we did."
Alex Russell (Surrey, BC) and
Ben Chow (Surrey, BC) led the Thunderbirds with 12 kills each.
Quentin Schmidt (Calgary, AB) had a team high nine digs.
Thompson Rivers Brad Gunter had a game high 19 kills and led the WolfPack with 21 points.
The Thunderbirds now get set for their season opening series versus the number one ranked team in the nation and the two time defending national champions, Trinity Western University. UBC plays host to the Spartans Friday October 26 at 8:00 pm at War Memorial Gym.
"We've been slowly learning through the preseason about each other and what we are capable of doing," said Schick. "We are not there yet and we don't pretend to be, but we want to get better every time we are out there and we are looking forward to the challenge."
In the bronze medal game Manitoba defeated Guelph 3-0 (25-14, 25-20, 25-23).
Thunderball Tournament All-Stars
Milan Nikic UBC
Alex Russell UBC
Hardy Wooldridge Thompson Rivers
Mohamed Abdel Rehim Thompson Rivers
Dane Pischke Manitoba
Winston Rosser Guelph
