VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds men's volleyball team (8-4), who slotted in at No. 5 in the latest CIS rankings, will kick off the 2016 portion of their Canada West season by hosting the Brandon Bobcats (6-8) in a two-game series.
 
The first showdown is set for a 7:30 p.m. (PT) start on Friday, January 15, while the second will get underway at 6:30 p.m. (PT) on Saturday, January 16. Both contests will take place at War Memorial Gym.
 
January 16 will also see the Thunderbirds host their Grand Alumni Mixer Night, which will celebrate the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest squads the UBC men's volleyball program has ever produced, the 1975-76 CIAU national championship squad. Coached by Lorne Sawula and led by national team veteran and 2012 UBC Sports Hall of Fame inductee Tom Jones, the 1975-76 team went a perfect 8-0 in the regular season, never dropping a single set. The T-Birds then dominated the post-season, going 5-1 in the round robin national championship tournament, which culminated in a 3-1 win (8-15, 16-14, 15-10, 15-7) over the Sherbrooke Vert et Or in the title clash.
 
Here in 2016, the current iteration of the T-Birds are riding a four-game in-conference winning streak into the showdown with Brandon, as they beat the Mount Royal Cougars and MacEwan Griffins twice apiece before heading off for the holiday break.
 
One area with which UBC has really made their mark is their defending at the net. The 'Birds lead Canada West in per-set blocked shots, averaging 2.90. A good portion of the credit for UBC's ferocious net-front defence is owed to fifth-year middle Alex Russell (Surrey, B.C.), whose 1.48 blocks lead the conference, and are 0.31 (or 27 per cent) higher than the second-highest player in the category, Mount Royal's Josh Kirkham. Russell's terrific presence at the net translates to offensie, as well, as the 6-foot-10 blocker also has a Canada West-leading attack efficiency percentage of .436.

On Friday night, second-year middle Joel Regehr (Courtenay, B.C.) will be presented with Volleyball B.C.'s Ray Lepp Scholarship, an award named after the former UBC head coach, which encourages and recognizes volleyball and personal excellence in British Columbia for athletes entering post-secondary education.
 
On the other side of the court, Brandon is in the midst of a stretch that's seen the team go 2-6 over their last eight contests. Of those six losses, three of them have been by a 3-0 set score.
 
However, a bright spot in recent weeks has been the play of third-year setter/outside hitter Roy Ching. The Bobcats offence flows almost entirely through Ching, as the 6-5 New Zealand native leads the conference in kills (248), total attack attempts (567) and kills-per-set (4.59). Ching is also tied for fourth in Canada West for service aces, with 16.