EDMONTON (U SPORTS) – The UBC Thunderbirds finished a successful 2016-17 season with a fourth-place finish at the 2017 U SPORTS FOG Men's Volleyball Championship, falling 3-0 Sunday afternoon to the McMaster Marauders at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton.
The set scores were 25-14, 27-25, 25-17 in favour of McMaster, which leaves nationals with a medal for the fifth straight season.
"Not exactly the colours we wanted, but we're very proud of what we accomplished so far," said McMaster's U SPORTS First Team All-Canadian Danny Demyanenko, who finishes his university career with two silvers and three bronze medals from U SPORTS Championships.
Demyanenko factored into Sunday's win a big way as the captain led McMaster's incredible block defence to nine total blocks and numerous chips that ruined sure kills for the Thunderbirds.
The Marauders were game right from the first serve, cruising into the technical timeout up 16-7 off Demyanenko's ace. They just kept extending their lead from there, ending it when Brandon Koppers blasted one off the UBC block and out.
It was not the same Thunderbirds team that took host Alberta to the limit on Saturday night.
"It took us a bit of time last night to regroup and release that loss last night," UBC head coach
Kerry MacDonald acknowledged. "That was a tough one. I thought we had the momentum going into that fifth set and to lose that one was tough. But today, we were really playing for a bronze medal because I thought our guys deserved it with what they did this year.
"I just wanted to see them be rewarded for all the hard work they put in and everything they accomplished. But we were not good enough today."
In the second set, UBC was undone by serving errors – recording six of their 12 in that span – as McMaster held an early lead. However, the Thunderbirds deserved a better fate in the set. They were up 22-19 and seemed poised to make it a long match. But McMaster came out of a timeout fired up, closed the gap and a close set ended when UBC went long on back-to-back kill attempts.
"There was kind of a combination of issues today," said MacDonald. "I don't think we served overly well. And we made too many attacking errors. We actually passed the ball quite well, but we never really got our offence going at all today.
"But a lot of that is a testament to them," he noted. "I thought they did a great job on their side-out blocking and their defensive assignments were fantastic. That's a pretty special team – a lot of fifth-years, junior national team and potential national team players over there. You've got to be better than that if you're going to beat them."
Hitting errors (10 total) destroyed any momentum UBC had going in the third set as they recorded a team percentage of -.062, unable to mount any offence against high-leaping McMaster. The match ended when Thunderbirds' junior national team setter
Byron Keturakis put a kill attempt into the net off a scrambly play.
Captain
Irvan Brar, powerful and fantastic at times in the match, led UBC with 13 kills. Keturakis chipped in 31 assists and six digs.
Cam Fennema added eight kills and an ace for the Thunderbirds.
McMaster was led by Koppers' 10 kills, while Andrew Richards, Demyanenko and Jayson McCarthy had eight each. Andrew Kocur added two aces and six digs.
The match concluded an excellent season for UBC, which - with first-year coach MacDonald - returned to the national tournament for the first time since 2008. The Thunderbirds went 16-8 in Canada West play, good enough for fourth place in the league standings. UBC then swept Brandon in the quarter-finals of the conference playoffs before earning bronze at the Canada West Final Four. The team loses just one player -
Angus Ireland - to graduation, while everyone else has at least a year of eligibility remaining.
STAT LEADERS
McMaster
Kills: Brandon Koppers (10)
Points: Brandon Koppers (12)
Blocks: Andrew Richards (3.5)
Digs: Andrew Kocur (6)
Service aces: Andrew Kocur (2)
Player of the match: Andrew Richards
UBC
Kills:
Irvan Brar (13)
Points:
Irvan Brar (13)
Blocks:
Joel Regehr,
Matt Santema (1)
Digs:
Byron Keturakis (6)
Service aces:
Cam Fennema (1)
Player of the match: Cam Fennema
SCHEDULE & RESULTS (All times MT)
Friday, March 17
1:00 p.m. QF 1: No. 1 Trinity Western 3 vs. No. 8 Waterloo 0 (25-18, 25-15, 25-23)
2:30 p.m. QF 2: No. 5 McMaster 3 vs. No. 4 Laval 2 (25-16, 25-11, 23-25, 19-25, 17-15)
6:30 p.m. QF 3: No. 2 Manitoba 1 vs. No. 7 Alberta 3 (18-25, 25-23, 21-25, 16-25)
8:00 p.m. QF 4: No. 3 UBC 3 vs No. 6 New Brunswick 1 (25-22, 25-20, 22-25, 25-17)
Saturday, March 18
1:00 p.m. Consolation #1: No. 4 Laval 3 vs No. 8 Waterloo 0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-17)
2:30 p.m. Consolation #2: No. 2 Manitoba 3 vs. No. 6 UNB 0 (25-20, 25-15, 25-22)
6:30 p.m. Semifinal #1: No. 7 Alberta 3 vs. No. 3 UBC 2 (25-23, 25-15, 20-25, 20-25, 15-11)
8:00 p.m. Semifinal #2: No. 1 Trinity Western 3 vs. No. 5 McMaster 1 (23-25, 25-14, 25-17, 25-21)
Sunday, March 19
12:00 p.m. 5th place: No. 4 Laval 1 vs No. 2 Manitoba 3 (25-22, 26-28, 25-23, 25-22)
3:00 p.m. No. 3 UBC 0 vs No. 5 McMaster 3 (25-14, 27-25, 25-17)
6:00 p.m. No. 1 Trinity Western vs No. 7 Alberta (
USPORTS.LIVE)
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