CALGARY – The UBC Thunderbirds dropped their second straight match to close out the regular season, falling in four sets (25-17, 25-16, 26-28, 25-23) to the Calgary Dinos Saturday afternoon at Jack Simpson Gym.
The T-Birds (15-9) needed a win in order to clinch the final Canada West home playoff berth and as a result will now travel to Regina next weekend for a best-of-three quarter-final series.
The Dinos (19-5) can finish no worse than a first-place tie with Trinity Western while Calgary owns the tiebreaker with the Spartans thanks so a superior sets won/lost ratio meaning the Dinos will have home court advantage throughout the Canada West playoffs.
Calgary's Hannah Tanasichuk led both teams with 19 kills throughout the game with teammate Kate Pexman also hitting double-digits with 10 kills. On UBC's side,
Kiera Van Ryk and
Tessa Davis were the leaders, with 14 and 10 kills, respectively.
"Obviously this was a very disappointing weekend for our team," said UBC head coach
Doug Reimer. "Calgary played very well again today and we didn't have the answers for their defence and didn't match their assertive play. We compounded that at times with a number of errors."
The Dinos started the game with the same attitude from Friday. They focused on controlling their defensive line and picked up three blocks in the opening set while the Thunderbirds only had one. Calgary kept on holding the block against UBC's Van Ryk which, through the set, allowed them to keep a seven-point lead while forcing the T-Birds to commit eight critical attack errors. Calgary took the first set by a 25-17 score.
Things continued to go Calgary's way in the second set with the Dinos picking up five blocks in the frame including a monster one-on-one stuff by Beth Vinnell on Van Ryk. The final was 25-16, sending the Dinos into the third set with plenty of momentum.
The energy came out of the room when midway through the third, reigning Canada West player of the year Pexman recorded her 10th kill before leaving the game with an injury. Leading 13-9 at the time, the Dinos shuffled the deck and the Thunderbirds picked up some momentum, eventually taking a 28-26 decision to extend the match to four. There, Calgary outlasted UBC to a 25-23 score, sweeping the weekend and clinching the conference pennant.
Van Ryk picked up a pair of service aces in the match to finish the season with 68, the second-most all-time in Canada West history.
Olivia Furlan earned an ace Saturday to end the year with 56, the third-most in a single season. Van Ryk also set a new UBC record with 489 points on the season, the third highest total in conference history.
While Saturday's result means UBC will head to Regina to open the playoffs, the Dinos will have a chance to qualify for the U SPORTS national championship at home when they host a Canada West quarter-final series.
