VANCOUVER – The Thunderbirds sent the War Memorial Gym crowd home happy at the end of their season opener, a straight sets victory over the visiting Brandon Bobcats.
 
Akash Grewal set the tone early for the T-Birds and kept rolling from there, finishing with an impressive 12 kills and eight aces, tying her career-high for the latter category. The Thunderbirds recorded 15 aces as a team.
 
"Akash was on fire serving early on, that was a very impressive serving performance. And I thought she brought good energy attacking-wise as well," remarked UBC Head coach Doug Reimer.

A number of other T-Birds had strong performances, including two debutants – outside hitter Aimee Skinner tallied an efficient eight kills and nine digs, while libero Bronwyn Ettinger had four digs, two assists and even snuck in a kill.


 
"You can see them fitting in well," said Reimer on the two third-year transfers. "They both have post-secondary experience and that showed. For the first night out for them I think it was good.
 
"Another player to highlight is Elizabeth Lee – she missed the entirety of last season with an ACL injury, so obviously happy to see her back as well."
 
On the side of the Bobcats, Cassidy Hauta helped lead her team with five kills, six digs and two aces. Nerissa Dyer tied her in kills with five on a .417 hitting percentage.
 
Skinner got the kill on the first attack of the game – and her UBC career – to start things off, before Grewal followed with an incredible service run that featured five aces to make it 7-0.
 
Some good defensive work by Brandon substitute Brynn Wildeboer helped shore up their serve reception, and Megan Pickford tallied a couple nice blocks, but the diverse Thunderbirds attack caused continual problems for the Manitoba side.


 
By the time Skinner ended the opening set with an ace, the score was 25-10 with the T-Birds in full control. The Bobcats came out well to start the second though, briefly taking an early lead through some more dogged defensive work.
 
The Thunderbirds slowly got themselves going again, and a series of kills from Lucy Borowski and Skinner made it 14-9 and forced a Brandon timeout. The visitors then went on a run of their own to cut the lead to two, but a quick kill and ace combo from Kylee Glanville re-established UBC momentum.
 
The Bobcats again refused to go away quietly, capitalizing on a couple UBC errors to again cut the deficit to two at 22-20, but that was as close as they got in an eventual 25-21 score.
 
A big solo block by Pickford tied up the score at 3 apiece early in the third, but the T-Birds' serving picked up in a big way with aces from Borowski and Jocelyn Lenarcic keying a run to make it 12-5 in favour of the home team.
 
The Bobcats then responded with five unanswered points of their own, including a pair of aces from Hauta, before the Thunderbirds pushed things back out of reach with a couple more service attacks from Grewal and kills from a number of different hitters.


 
While Reimer was pleased with the result and overall performance, he made sure to note that there is plenty of work to do to improve for both tomorrow and the rest of the season.
 
"There are definitely things to clean up, but that's always the case early in the season, especially the first match of the year…we just have to be patient with ourselves, and regardless of what happens re-focus and be ready to go."
 
The rematch between the T-Birds and Bobcats begins at 6:00 p.m. (PT) on Saturday, inside War Memorial Gym.