QUEBEC CITY – It was a solid start, a rocky middle, but a strong finish for the defending national champion UBC Thunderbirds who advanced to a third straight U SPORTS semifinal with a five set win (24-26, 28-26, 24-26, 25-18, 15-8) over the sixth seeded Dalhousie Tigers Friday afternoon at Université Laval.
The 'Birds opened the match with a 10-0 run before the Tigers finally got on the board. But the AUS champions took 26 of the next 40 points to earn a 26-24 first set win.
The two teams split the next two sets putting the 'Birds on the ropes heading to a must-win fourth which UBC took by a fairly convincing 25-18 margin.
At that point, the 'Birds never looked back. UBC started the final set 4-1 and closed it out with
Anna Price's 10
th kill of the match ending a long rally as the T-Birds will face the Alberta Pandas in a semifinal Saturday night.
"We were getting a little too careful in some situations and they were serving more assertively more than us and we just weren't getting after it," said UBC head coach
Doug Reimer about his team's rocky start. "In the fourth and fifth we had good balance and composure on the court. I'm pretty proud of the way we rebounded because that's not an easy situation to be in."
The second set began with several long rallies as the teams remained close, even at six apiece until a Price service ace sparked a 7-1 run as the 'Birds took a 13-7 lead. Up 21-16, the 'Birds once again saw the Tigers claw their way back to tie the set at 24, fighting off quadruple UBC set point.
With a set point of their own at 26-25,
Ciara Hanly made a terrific cross-court kill. The 'Birds then took the next two points to take the second set by a 28-26 mark thanks to an
Olivia Furlan service ace, her second of the set.
Kiera Van Ryk had six kills in the second set alone, finishing with a match-high 24 to go along with her 20 digs. Libero Sam Patko was named UBC's Player of the Match with an incredible 31 digs.
"Our team this year has been all about grit, I think we've come back from a lot of ups and downs," said Patko on her team's overall confidence in their ability to battle back. "We just really dug deep and at the end of the day it could have been the last two sets we had to play, so we just gave it all we had."
After falling down 7-4 to start the third set, UBC rallied and yet another Furlan ace evened the match at seven. UBC took a 14-10 lead but the back-and-forth affair continued as the Tigers tied it yet again at 14 and went on to take a 22-16 lead. But true to form, the 'Birds battled back themselves taking the next six points to even the score once more before Dalhousie eventually closed it out, 26-24.
The T-Birds started the fourth firing on all cylinders to take a 7-1 lead. But that lead, like others by both teams, didn't last long as the Tigers once again came within two points, at 13-11. But they wouldn't come any closer as the T-Birds were able to pull away for the 25-18 win, setting up the eventual comeback completion in the fifth.
After losing the first two sets in the first quarter-final of the day, the Alberta Pandas took the final three to set up the semifinal meeting with the Thunderbirds, a rematch of last year's U SPORTS gold medal match. First serve is set for 3:00 p.m. PT.
