VANCOUVER – The No. 6. UBC Thunderbirds captured the McDonald's International men's volleyball tournament title on Sunday with a 3-1 win over the host Thompson Rivers WolfPack. The scores at the Tournament Capital Centre were 25-23, 25-20, 16-25 and 25-20.

The Pepperdine Waves (NCAA Division I) took home the bronze medal after defeating the Dalhousie Tigers (AUS) 3-0 (25-15, 26-24 and 25-22).

"I thought we played a little better tonight than we did yesterday against Pepperdine (a five-set win)," stated UBC head coach Richard Schick. "I thought we competed at a more consistent effort tonight other than the third set and I thought TRU put a lot of pressure on our servers in that third set."

With Thompson Rivers leading 11-10 in the fourth set, kills from Noah Derksen (Winnipeg) bookended a 12-4 run that allowed UBC to take the lead for good.

The T-Birds never got traction in the third set, dropping the game without holding the lead at any point.

UBC rallied from early deficits in the opening two sets to claim victory.

In the second, the 'Birds were down 8-6 before going on a 10-4 spurt, sparked by a couple of aces from Alex Russell (Surrey, B.C.), to take the lead. TRU was able to tie the set at 17-17 before UBC won eight of the final 11 points.

The opening game followed a similar pattern.  TRU took an 11-7 lead but then saw the visitors take 11 of the next 14 points.  A late WolfPack run tied the proceedings at 22-22 before UBC was able to clinch the set.

The Thunderbirds were led by Jarrid Ireland (Winnipeg).  He had 13 kills in 36 chances and seven digs.  Derksen had 11 kills in 24 chances with six digs while Russell had eight kills in 27 opportunities. Setter Milan Nikic (Calgary) had 37 assists.

"I thought UBC was a lot sharper in the first two sets," said Thompson Rivers head coach Pat Hennelly. "Especially broken plays. They did a real good job on the fast dig and turning around and setting it back. We were struggling a bit and punching the ball around. We will need to make more quality contact. It is something we need to work on in practice. In long rallies, we lost some ground. A credit to UBC in the first two sets, for hitting a lot of hard balls. They made some plays which had us on our heels. It's a good lesson with some of the matches we have to play in Canada West in the next few weeks."

For TRU, Brad Gunter had 15 kills in 40 opportunities with three service aces and six digs.

This was the third meeting between the teams in non-conference action this season.  They split two games at UBC's Thunderball tournament in October. They'll finally meet in regular season play on the weekend of Jan. 18-19 in Kamloops.  UBC's next games will be Jan. 11-12 at home against Winnipeg.

- with files from Larry Read, TRU Sports Information