VANCOUVER – The No. 1 UBC Thunderbirds won their tickets to the CIS tournament in Quebec on Thursday, downing the Mount Royal Cougars 3-0 (25-18, 25-11, 25-16) in the Canada West semifinal round at War Memorial Gym.
BOX SCORE
The 'Birds hadn't played a match since beating Mount Royal at home two weeks ago to close out the regular season, but they showed no signs of rust on Thursday. Some shaky serving allowed the Cougars to hang around in the first set, but UBC's defence had the visitors on their heels all night, forcing them into a 23 kill, 24 error performance. UBC also outblocked Mount Royal 13-6.
WVB: T-Birds v. MRU (Feb. 21, 2013) Gallery
“Our blocking was solid and we really made them work hard to get their kills,” said UBC head coach
Doug Reimer. “In the first set we didn't serve as well and made some errors, but we hung in there. It's always a different environment in the semifinals with everyone trying to get the W and move on. For us to play very composed like that as a group was great to see.”
Thanks in part to that steady defence, the T-Birds had plenty of great open looks in the match offensively. But Reimer noted that the threat of his team's two all-star outside hitters,
Shanice Marcelle and
Lisa Barclay, was also a big reason for those easy attacks, with things opening up in the middle for UBC as Mount Royal focused on defending the outside.
“Usually your middle blockers have to do a lot of jumping to not get many sets, but in this case Mount Royal was playing very focused on our outside hitters and willing to risk giving up some stuff in the middle, so our middles and (setter) Brina (Derksen-Bergen) did a nice job to capitalize there.”
Middle blockers Abigail Keeping and
Jessica von Schilling each had seven kills and six blocks for the 'Birds. Keeping was particularly efficient, needing just eight attacks to get her kills.
Derksen-Bergen, also an all-star this season, finished with 28 assists while sharing time with
Kirsty Setterlund at the setter spot.
Canada West MVP Marcelle only ended up with six kills and tied for third on the team in total attacks due to all the defensive pressure she faced, but still found a way to positively affect the game with contributions in other areas, especially defensively. She kept a lot of plays alive for the 'Birds and ended up with three blocks and five digs.
Barclay was also kept fairly quiet on the outside, at least until the third set, where she rattled of five of the last six kills for UBC, including match point, to finish with a game-high 11 on .320 hitting. She also led all players with eight digs and had four blocks.
For the Cougars, Julia Pasieka, Olivia Grecu and Kylie Willis all tied for the team lead with six kills. Pasieka also had four big blocks including two solos, but the Cougars couldn't get any kind of rhythm going offensively and only Willis hit over .200 in the game.
The win moves UBC forward into the Canada West title game and the CIS tournament, where they will be looking to make it six straight national titles. Last season the 'Birds lost the Canada West gold medal game to Alberta, who will play Trinity Western in the other semifinal match later tonight. UBC then went on to defeat Alberta in a five-set CIS title match.
“All the preparation so far was on this game today,” said Reimer. “Last year we probably relaxed a little too much in between these games, but now with an extra day off. You of course want to try and win a Canada West championship, but most importantly we want to play a good, solid match against basically a new team that we haven't seen since the beginning of the season.”
The Cougars can also still qualify for the CIS tournament if they win the Canada West bronze medal match against the loser of the Alberta-TWU game.
The bronze medal game goes on Saturday, February 23 at 1 p.m., followed by the championship game at 3 p.m. All Final Four games are at War Memorial Gym.
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