VANCOUVER – The No. 6-ranked UBC Thunderbirds women's volleyball team got back in the win column in a big way on Friday night, claiming a straight-sets win over the Thompson Rivers WolfPack at War Memorial Gym.
The 'Birds took the three sets by scores of 25-18, 25-22, and 25-21.
Outside hitter
Danielle Brisebois (Bolton, Ont.) was dominant for the host T-Birds, particularly in the third set, where the fourth-year standout notched six of her team-high 14 kills. Fellow attackers
Juliana Kaufmanis (Richmond, B.C.), with nine kills, and
Alissa Coulter (Calgary), with seven kills and three aces, also played pivotal roles.
On the WolfPack side, it was Iuliia Pakhomenko who did the majority of the damage, as the 6-foot-3 Ukrainian racked up game-highs of 16 kills and 12 digs.
Contrasting his side's performance with the past few weeks, UBC head coach
Doug Reimer brought up both team-wide improvements, and a couple of impressive individual performances.
"I think we played relatively steady volleyball, and near the end of the sets, when we were down, we made a lot less unforced errors. Offensively, we had some players do really well. I thought
Ciara Hanly [who finished with six kills] did some nice attacking in the middle, I thought Juliana did a very good job in the first set, and Danny Brisebois was really good too, and picked up her fair share of kills."
The visiting WolfPack jumped out to a 7-3 lead to open the match on Brianne Rauch's kill that went off the fingertips of two UBC blockers.
TRU still held a 12-9 advantage after Pakhomenko and Morgan Kolasa went up to block a UBC attack. But the hosts turned things around after an 8-2 surge that was capped off by a Kaufmanis kill to go ahead 17-14. Later in the set, she served an ace to put her team up 21-16, the biggest lead for the T-Birds up to that point.
Brisebois knocked down a couple of kills for home side before back-to-back blocks by UBC, with
Nicola Laniuk (Surrey, B.C.) involved on both, clinched the opening set 25-18.
In the second, the WolfPack earned a late 21-18 lead on a service from Kolasa, but the T-Birds won seven of the next eight points to take a 2-0 set advantage. Once again, UBC finished with back-to-back blocks involving Laniuk.
After a power outage caused a slight delay between the second and third sets, the T-Birds got off to a shaky start in the third stanza. The 'Birds fell in a 4-2 hole early, but a long rally, ended on a sweet Brisebois kill, seemed to shake the cobwebs.
The hosts, on the back of a couple of kills and an ace from Brisebois not only battled their way to even footing, but earned an 11-8 lead in short order.
Up 15-11 just minutes later, the T-Birds'
Ciara Hanly was given a bit of a gift, as the middle served, only to have the ball bounce of the top of the net and drop to the floor in the dead center of the Thompson Rivers formation.
Soon after, Coulter and Kaufmanis pulled off a pair of spectacular blocks in quick succession, putting the 'Birds up by a commanding six points, armed with a 22-16 advantage.
With UBC at match point, after the WolfPack had closed the gap to just 24-21, the set and match closed out on a Thompson Rivers net violation.
The 'Birds will get a chance to earn the sweep tomorrow night, as they and the WolfPack square off in the rematch at 5:00 p.m. (PT) at War Memorial Gym.
Though, Reimer admits that playing the same team twice in a row, and winning, is one of the most challenging aspects of CIS sports.
"We're going to prepare, we're going to watch video, and we're going to try and take away the things that they did have success with," said Reimer. "We have to go in knowing that it's probably going to be more difficult tomorrow and we have to be ready for Thompson Rivers to bounce back, because I think they've got more."
