VANCOUVER – In front of a big and boisterous Pride Night crowd, the UBC Thunderbirds were pushed quite hard by a determined Winnipeg Wesmen side. Going down 2-1 in set count, the T-Birds showed resilience and roared back to claim a five-set victory.
Lucy Borowski played a big role in the comeback, landing 21 kills on a phenomenal .381 hitting percentage, while also recording a career-best 21 digs.
"Sometimes people get digs because people are hitting balls right to them, or they're easy balls," said UBC head coach
Doug Reimer. "But out of those digs, there was a ton of very difficult digs that to me showed not just skill but also she worked really hard and showed great heart. And also offensively, she improved throughout the match."
Not to be outdone,
Kylee Glanville also tallied a career-high in digs with 17, along with 17 kills.
Leonora Barbulovich-Nad had a big performance in the middle with six kills, three digs, six blocks and a career-high four aces.
Brooke Duncalfe tallied 16 kills and 17 digs for the visitors, while Ella Werbiski poured in a season-high 12 kills along with 10 digs.
The Wesmen grabbed a quick lead to begin the first set, but the Thunderbirds soon took it for themselves with kills from
Jocelyn Lenarcic and Borowski.
Aimee Skinner stretched the advantage to 12-8 with a powerful swing that forced a Winnipeg timeout, before the Wesmen fought back to stay in it.
A Megan Kendziora ace cut the deficit to two points, but while they were able to get it close a few times, the Thunderbirds always stayed just out in front. Back-to-back kills from Glanville ended the set at 25-21, much to the delight of the crowd.
The Wesmen again started the set well in the second, with Grace Vallis and Emily Lavallee combining for a series of kills over the middle to go up 6-3. This time, it was the visitors who took the bend-but-don't-break approach to their lead management as the Thunderbirds were able to tie things up multiple times but could never jump out in front.
The last tie was at 18-18, before some UBC errors helped Winnipeg reel off a 5-1 run and they didn't look back from there.
The Thunderbirds struggled with more errors early in the third, going down by as many as six points before mounting a furious comeback to take the lead at 20-19 on a Borowski kill. The two sides went back and forth from there, with a series of ties before Werbiski came through in the clutch with a pair of big kills to take the set.
Needing to really turn things around, the T-Birds came out firing to begin the fourth and didn't look back from there.
"Our execution was better," remarked Reimer on what changed at that crucial interval. "We were getting our hitters in better opportunities to score more effectively…I thought Winnipeg played very, very well. They were defending great, scoring in lots of different areas, and it took us a long time to adapt, and to get them out of their comfort zone more."
Elizabeth Lee and Barbulovich-Nad both served aces early in the fourth, with a Glanville kill making it 5-3 UBC. A series of powerful kills from Borowski and Glanville were matched by ones from Werbiski and Vallis, as the visitors tried to keep pace.
A 6-2 burst from the hosts, capped by a Lee kill, allowed the 'Birds to pull away. They took the frame 25-20 in the end, setting up a decisive fifth set.
That final set turned out to be the least competitive of the lot, as the Thunderbirds jumped out to a big lead early. That was powered in large part by some fantastic block defence, with Lenarcic, Robertshaw and Glanville all teaming up to send back attacks for points.
The night ended on a block as well, with Barbulovich-Nad and Lee the two who recorded the final UBC point to take the fifth 15-6. That sent the crowd home happy, and closed off a successful Pride Night event at War Memorial Gym.
"I just want to thank our department for supporting Pride, I want to thank our team and our players' subcommittees because they worked very hard on this as well," said Reimer. "We had a couple of speakers come in and talk to our team, and it educated us a lot and had us reflect.
"We all have a role to play in making sport at all ages and levels a safer place for people to be. And I think we were challenged to learn more and to make sure we're not just looking at Pride as a one-night event, that we are acting in a way day-by-day to make our environments more inclusive and be leaders in that regard."
On the court, the T-Birds have just one more match to play before the winter break, a rematch against the Wesmen on Saturday. Opening serve is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. (PT), as the Thunderbirds aim to improve to 8-2.
