VANCOUVER – After needing some late comebacks to pull themselves out of the fire on Friday, the UBC Thunderbirds looked much more in control Saturday against the UBC Okanagan Heat, downing them again in straight sets (25-19, 25-20, 25-21) at War Memorial Gym.
BOX SCORE
The 'Birds found themselves behind late in the final two sets against the Heat in game one of their series, but after erasing a 10-9 Heat lead in the first set, UBC was in front the rest of the night on Saturday.
The action was still close in all three sets, as the Heat played a tight defensive game and didn't let any balls find the floor easily, but UBC got a great bounce back performance from its middles, and
Jarrid Ireland had another great night on the outside to push the 'Birds to victory.
“I thought we came out with more conviction today, which is good to see. Overall it was a balanced effort and we played with a bit of a chip on our shoulder,” said UBC head coach
Richard Schick. “That's not always the identity of this group but today we played with a chip and we needed to because they really scrapped it out against us but we stuck with it.”
Ireland led all players with 11 kills on .476 hitting, and his defence is continuing to trend upward as well, as he led the team with nine digs and was in on three blocks.
“He provides us that go-to guy,” Schick said of his second-year outside hitter. “There were quite a few two-man blocks he faced today on the right and left side, and he worked the block to his advantage and found holes in the defence.”
Setter
Milan Nikic distributed the ball evenly across his three main targets of Ireland,
Ben Chow and
Quentin Schmidt, earning him 29 aces. Schmidt added eight kills and Chow had seven. UBC hit .312 as a team.
After struggling in the battle at the net last night, UBC's middles asserted themselves on both sides of the ball Saturday.
Chris Howe tallied five blocks, three of them solo efforts, and added six kills on .455 hitting.
Alex Russell had three blocks and six kills of his own on only nine attacks, and he finished off both the second and third sets with a kill.
“I thought last night we got dominated in the middle, but today we were so much more efficient out of the middle, which is what we've been all year,” Schick said. “We can't accept things as they were yesterday and we adjusted well tonight.”
The 'Birds did a nice job on UBCO's Riley McFarland again, holding him to six kills on .031 hitting after he was held to a negative hitting percentage Friday.
Bret Uniat and Greg Niemantsverdriet tied for the team lead with seven kills. Jeremy Fostvelt had a game-high 12 digs for the Heat.
The Heat fall to 2-16 with the loss. They play in Winnipeg next week.
UBC improves to 12-6 to keep pace near the top of the table in Canada West. They are only one game back of second-place Trinity Western, with four games remaining in the regular season.
Next week they take on Brandon in Manitoba, before wrapping up the regular season at home against Mount Royal on February 8 and 9.
-30-
