VANCOUVER - After a disappointing straight-sets loss to open their road series against Saskatchewan last week, the Thunderbirds bounced back to win an absolute marathon of a five-setter. Now they need to get re-energized quickly, as they face another road trip this weekend to take on the Calgary Dinos in Canada West men's volleyball action.
Both games will be streamed with live statistics on
CanadaWest.tv.
GAME TIMES
Friday, Nov. 16 - No. 8 UBC at Calgary (5:00 p.m. at Jack Simpson Gym, Calgary)
Saturday, Nov. 17 - No. 8 UBC at Calgary (7 p.m. at Jack Simpson Gym, Calgary)
No. 8 UBC Thunderbirds (2-4)
Last Week: L 3-0, W 3-2 at No. 7 Saskatchewan
The Huskies smashed the T-Birds 25-9, 25-15, 25-12 in game one before the 'Birds achieved what head coach
Richard Schick called “one of the gutsier wins in my time at UBC” the next night.
The whole trip started out bad for the 'Birds and got worse from there. Left side hitter
Ben Chow went down to injury before the series, and then a flight delay led to an 18-hour travel day to arrive in Saskatchewan. After that produced one of UBC's more lopsided losses in recent history, they bounced back with an incredible effort to win 19-25, 31-29, 27-25, 23-25, 15-11 the next day despite being even more shorthanded after losing more players to food poisoning.
David Zeyha had 21 kills in the win, making it back-to-back weeks with 20+ kill matches for him.
Quentin Schmidt had 14 and
Noah Derksen stepped up into a larger role with all the injuries and made the most of it, putting down 10 kills on .292 hitting.
Chris Howe also had 10 kills on .529 hitting out of the middle for UBC, while adding three aces from the service line and six blocks, of which three were solo blocks. That was a good time for his best performance as a T-Bird, as the team needed everything they could muster to get the crucial win.
The 2-4 record might not look like much, but considering it came against No. 1 Alberta, No. 2 TWU and No. 7 Saskatchewan, the 'Birds are in pretty good position as long as they can take care of business in games they are favoured to win. There aren't many easy nights in Canada West volleyball, but they only have two more teams with winning records ahead on their schedule right now.
Calgary Dinos (2-4)
Last Week: L 3-1, W 3-1 vs Winnipeg
The Dinos led the Winnipeg offence walk all over them in the first game before turning things around completely in game two last week. Winnipeg's hitting percentage fell from .333 on Friday to .115 Saturday, and the Dinos came up with 21 blocks in the win. Third-year middle blocker Ivan Kartev was in on 14 of them, and he is currently fifth in the conference with 1.35 blocks per set this season.
Inconsistency has been the problem for the Dinos this year. They have shown flashes of great play on both sides of the ball at times, but they rank near the bottom of most statistical categories both offensively and defensively. They still have time to get it together and make a run up the standings though, and a homestand against a ranked team coming off an exhausting weekend would be a good time to start.
Connor Frehlich leads the Dinos with 2.85 kills per game and he can get involved on the block as well. Greg Mann is the only other Dino averaging more than two kills per set but he is hitting just .115 on the year, giving the Dinos very limited offensive options. They need someone to heat up on the outside and start producing some offensive results consistently if they want to be in the playoff mix this year.
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