VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds led wire-to-wire as they took down the Thompson Rivers WolfPack 81-61 at War Memorial Gym. A spirited TRU side fought hard throughout, but a dominant fourth quarter allowed the 'Birds to comfortably wind down the clock at the end of the night.

It was a very stop-start game that featured plenty of hard-nosed defence and scrappy play. The two teams combined for 49 turnovers and 50 fouls called on the night.

"There was just zero flow," remarked Thunderbirds head coach Kevin Hanson. "It was a tough one for a lot of reasons, hard to get momentum…but you gotta be able to play different games."



Adam Olsen had a massive performance with a career-high 27 points to go along with four rebounds and three assists. Nylan Roberts also notched a new season-high of 10 points off the bench while Fareed Shittu added 11 points, six boards and three steals.

Dami Farinloye put up 15 points, three rebounds and four steals. Simon Crossfield had a strong performance off the bench with nine points and eight rebounds.

It was a back-and-forth beginning to the first quarter, with a series of early blocks from Nikola Guzina, Victor Radocaj and Micah Jessie setting the tone defensively for the T-Birds. They locked down the WolfPack in the opening frame, ripping off a 17-4 run in the final six minutes to enter the break up 25-12.

A spinning layup from Shittu made it 29-15 for the home team early in the second, but TRU didn't let them pull away further. All of a sudden, the momentum flipped and the WolfPack scored 11 unanswered to cut the lead to just three.



The flip-flopping nature of the game continued from there though, as the 'Birds then dug back in and went on a big run of their own to stretch the lead back out to 12 to end the half.

Brendan Sullivan teed up a highlight play to begin the third, crossing over his defender before feeding it to Shittu for a big dunk. That was followed by a triple from Olsen to force a TRU timeout, with UBC up 48-32.

Again though, the visitors refused to go down without a fight. They ground the lead down to single digits by the end of the quarter, with Simon Crossfield draining a three-pointer as the buzzer sounded to make it 55-47 after 30 minutes.

The WolfPack got the deficit down to five points early in the fourth, but that's as close as they would get, as an Olsen reverse layup was followed immediately by an and-one from Radocaj to grab the momentum back.

The T-Birds avalanche continued as Arnaud Konan turned one of his three steals into a fastbreak layup on the other end to make it 70-53, after Olsen hit his fourth triple to earn his new career-high.



"He was outstanding," said Hanson on Olsen's play. "We relied on him and he got it going and had a great one. As a second-year kid he's certainly growing and developing and he's a big part of what we do."

The Thunderbirds were able to cruise to the end from there, improving to 7-3 on the season and winning their third game in a row.

They'll have a different opponent on Saturday night, as UNBC comes to town in the first meeting between the two teams since the Timberwolves upset the T-Birds in the opening round of last year's playoffs.

"I actually like playing a second opponent," added Hanson. "There's certainly a lot in my mind from last year, so I'm certainly fired up to play that one and can't wait to get back on the court. I want to clean up some things from today, and hopefully we'll see a little bit more of a polished game tomorrow."

That game begins at 6:00 p.m. (PT) at War Memorial Gym.