VANCOUVER – A hot start got UBC off to a 2-0 lead at home against the Winnipeg Wesmen on Friday, but the visitors came charging back to earn a 3-2 upset over the No. 6 T-Birds (24-26, 13-25, 25-18, 25-22, 16-14) at War Memorial Gym.
BOX SCORE
The fifth set was a dead heat early on, with both teams siding out consistently. With the score tied at six, the UBC sideline and fans were left frustrated by a controversial play that looked like a double-hit by Winnipeg. The Wesmen went on to take the point and go up 7-6, and they never relinquished the lead after that.
Brendan Black had a pair of blocks midway through the fifth to extend Winnipeg's lead to 13-10. The T-Birds regrouped and charged all the way back to tie it up again at 14, but Casey Schouten's team-high 13
th kill of the night set the Wesmen up with a match-point opportunity, and Tom Douglas-Powell capitalized on it with a great back-row shot into the far corner.
“I knew their setter was fired up after that second set. He wasn't happy and we knew he was going to fire his team up,” said UBC head coach
Richard Schick, referring to Wesmen setter Josh McKay. “We talked about that and knew we had to play harder because we had a 2-0 lead there but we weren't playing very well.”
McKay, son of Winnipeg coach Larry McKay, had only 12 assists after the first two sets, and his team was hitting just .051. But they went on to hit well over .200 in each of the final three sets, including .389 in the fifth, and McKay finished with 47 assists, 11 digs and four block assists.
UBC nearly pulled off a big comeback in the fourth set to end the match right there, evening things up late after falling behind 6-0 and as many as seven points off the lead early on. Rob Gotch subbed on for a brilliant performance, putting down six kills on seven attacks in the set while adding a block and a couple digs, but the Wesmen block was too much to overcome in the end.
“Gotch has done that for us all year. He's never gone in and not played well so that's to be expected from him, but at the same time for him to come in off the bench with that kind of performance and play almost flawless volleyball is awesome for us,” said Schick.
UBC actually outblocked Winnipeg 18-14 in the match, but the Wesmen seemed to keep coming up with blocks in big moments. Black had a block on game point to end the fourth set, and he was in on 13 of his team's 14 blocks in the match.
Alex Russell led UBC with 12 total blocks including to solos.
Jarrid Ireland also got heavily involved from the outside, adding eight blocks to his game-high 18 kills.
Chris Howe had five blocks and seven kills on .545 hitting out of the middle.
The Thunderbirds fall to 8-5 with the loss, which also ends a seven-match conference win streak, while Winnipeg jumps above .500 at 7-6 on the year. The teams go head to head again on Saturday at War Memorial, beginning at 7 p.m.
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