VANCOUVER – The No. 5 UBC Thunderbirds (3-2) extended their winning streak to three games by defeating the visiting Thompson Rivers WolfPack (2-3) in straights sets (25-22, 25-19 and 25-17) on Saturday afternoon in Vancouver.
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BOX SCORE
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"It was a pretty solid effort by our group. One of the best ones I've seen this year from our team," said UBC head coach
Richard Schick.
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After a close first set, UBC was able to keep TRU from reaching 20 points in the next two to earn the victory.
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The T-Birds started off the opening set with a 5-1 run but after sideout, Daniel Eikeland Rod reeled off five points in a row on his serve to give the 'Pack the lead. The two teams went back and forth from that point, evenly splitting the first 36 points.
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A service error by TRU's Colin Carson gave UBC a 19-18 lead, which the home team didn't relinquish thanks to two kills each from
Ben Chow and
Quentin Schmidt and one from
Chris Howe helped bring the UBC point total to 25.
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The T-Birds raced out to an 11-5 lead in the second set courtesy of a
Gabriel Aaron ace. The teams basically traded points the rest of the way as UBC ended with a six-point advantage.
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The third set followed a similar pattern as an attack error by Randy Grundmann gave UBC a 13-4 lead. TRU never got closer than within six points of UBC after that.
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T-Bird
Ben Chow finished as the only player with double digit kills (10). With just one error, the Fleetwood Park graduate recorded a hitting percentage of .643 on the day.Â
Quentin Schmidt had nine kills while
Noah Derksen had 13 digs.
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Brad Gunter and Stuart Richey led the WolfPack with eight kills each. Gunter has a large majority of the team's total attacks this season but on Saturday, he had only 18 compared to teammate Casey Knight's 22.
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"I thought they scrapped it out a little bit more in the first set and we got stuck in a couple of rotations serve receiving but other than that, I thought the rest of our game was fairly solid, from sideout to passing. It was good," commented Schick.
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After opening the season with three straight wins, TRU has now lost two matches in a row and will look to break that streak on Sunday afternoon against UBC. The first serve is scheduled for 3 p.m. at War Memorial Gymnasium.
