Vancouver, BC - In their last game of the 2014-2015 Canada West regular season the UBC Thunderbirds defeated the University of Regina Cougars in straight sets in War Memorial Gymnasium. Set scores were 25-15, 25-19, and 25-15 in favour of UBC.
Saturday's match marks the last of its kind within UBC's War Memorial Gymnasium for three Thunderbird fifth-years. Abbey Keeping, Lisa Barclay, and Rosie Schlagintweit will graduate at the culmination of this postseason.
"It was a good way to finish the regular season," said Barclay, who led the Thunderbirds with 11 kills in the match. "I thought we had control the entire match."
Barclay, through her five-year career with the Thunderbirds, has amassed 1091 regular season kills – vaulting her to fourth all-time in the Canada West in that category.
Regina's season comes to an end after Saturday's match, as their 7-17 record does not see them to a postseason berth. Michelle Sweeting, Chelsea Ziolkowski, and Lindsay Braul – Regina's three fifth-year players – will hang up the Cougar jersey for the last time, as their time of dedication to being a CIS athlete has been completed.
"It wasn't the performance that we were hoping for, but we had fun with it," said Ziolkowski, who had eight kills on the right-side for Regina. "We knew we weren't going to make playoffs, so we just wanted to stick together as a team and enjoy the last few days of the season."
In the middle for the Cougars, Sweeting led all players with 12 kills on Saturday evening, bringing her overall total to 995 kills through her career, which should place her in eight in the Canada West record books. Sweeting averaged over 2.0 kills per set in each of her five seasons in the league.
Ziolkowski's fifth year with the Cougars was statistically her best, tallying 219 kills through 23 matches. She notes the invaluable lessons learned through the playing of her five years in the CIS.
"It teaches you commitment, discipline, everything like that," said Ziolkowski."If you can get through a [CIS career], you can get through almost anything. It's been a fantastic experience."
With the victory, the Thunderbirds will finish the regular season with a record of 13-11, placing them fifth in Canada West standings. This marks the first season since 2008-2009 that the Thunderbirds have not finished first in Canada West regular season standings, and the first since 2006-2007 that they will not host a playoff match. Instead of staying within the comforts of War Memorial Gymnasium, the Thunderbirds will travel to Calgary next weekend to take on the University of Calgary Dinos in Canada West quarterfinal action.
"I definitely think we've stepped it up in blocking [recently], and we were serving pretty tough this weekend," said Barclay. "Against Calgary [in the regular season] those were two areas that we got into trouble with."
Keeping as well notes the importance of net play in the Thunderbirds game heading into the playoffs.
"I think we need to focus on our press over the net, and getting over early," said Keeping. "With Calgary, blocking the middles, reading early – that sort of thing."
The Thunderbirds will need to defeat the Dinos in a best-of-three series to continue this 2014-2015 season and keep their CIS Championship streak alive. The Thunderbirds have competed in nine of the past 10 CIS National Finals, winning six of them.
