VANCOUVER - The No. 6-ranked UBC Thunderbirds women's volleyball team (12-6) will aim to right the ship this weekend, as they face their counterparts from the Thompson Rivers WolfPack in a set of back-to-back games.
In front of their hometown fans at War Memorial Gym, the T-Birds will first take on the WolfPack at 7:30 p.m. (PT) on Friday, February 5. The two sides will go for round two on Saturday, February 6, with the match set to start at 5:00 p.m. (PT)
UBC claimed just one set across their two matches over this past weekend, dropping 3-1 and 3-0 decisions to UBC Okanagan (17-1), the second ranked program in the country.
The losses against the Heat have extended what has been UBC's worst stretch of the season – after going 11-1 in their first 12 games, the 'Birds have now dropped four of their last five contests.
A squad with national title aspirations year-in and year-out, UBC head coach
Doug Reimer has to find a way to get the T-Birds on track.
"For us, now that we're getting a little healthier, our focus needs to be on getting more comfortable with one another on the court," said Reimer. "And our strong stretches of play needs to extend for longer periods of time. We've made too many mistakes lately, and against the high-calibre teams that we've been facing, they've cost us."
Almost a diametric opposite to the Thunderbirds, the WolfPack are feasting right now. TRU started just 5-8 to open the 2015-16 campaign, but have since earned seven wins in their last eight outings.
Their success, especially of late, has been predicated on the performance of one player. Over the aforementioned seven-game stretch, Iuliia Pakhomenko has led the team in kills, while hitting double digits, in every contest. The Ukrainian import, a 6-foot-3 outside hitter, has powered her club's offense with a 4.81 kill-per-set rate over the past seven games, which, remarkably, actually stands below her Canada-West topping 4.87 K/S rate for the season.
"Obviously, they're a tremendously competitive team and they're bringing one of the most dynamic attackers in the conference," assessed Reimer. "They've improved a lot of late, and we're going to have to play at our top-end to be successful this weekend."
