KAMLOOPS, B.C. – It was a perfect beginning but far from an ideal middle and end for the UBC Thunderbirds in Kamloops, as they dominated the WolfPack in their opening set but then dropped three in a row to lose in the end.
 
Lucy Borowski put forth a fantastic individual performance with 15 kills, seven digs and zero attack errors. Kylee Glanville added 10 kills and 14 digs but the T-Birds were unable to find enough secondary offence to power them.
 
Rida Erlalelitepe tallied 14 kills and seven digs for the home team, while Keira Gent had 11 kills and 10 digs.
 
The T-Birds scored 10 of the first 11 points of the night, with some early kills from Glanville and Leonora Barbulovich-Nad, as well as a powerful run of serves by Aimee Skinner helping set the tone.
 
Barbulovich-Nad followed up Skinner's run with a series of fantastic serves of her own, keeping the WolfPack on the back foot and increasing the UBC lead even further. The T-Birds recorded six aces in total in the opening set, and hit .500 as a team from open play with 10 kills and zero attack errors.
 
On the defensive end, the Thunderbirds tallied nine digs and two blocks as a team as they held the hosts to a -.190 hitting percentage in perhaps their most dominant single-set performance of the year so far. An Ella Ungemach kill ended things at 25-7, giving the WolfPack a hole to dig themselves out of.


 
TRU did certainly get themselves going offensively to begin the second, opening up a 5-2 lead before the T-Birds began to claw themselves back into things. A heads-up play by Issy Robertshaw to land a kill at the net tied up the score momentarily, but the WolfPack charged back out in front in a big reversal from the first set of action.
 
A Maria Dancheva ace ended the second in favour of 25-15 for TRU, in a frame where the WolfPack hit .407 and the T-Birds just .161. With the momentum fully reset, the Thunderbirds needed to find the counter-punch.
 
That punch was not forthcoming, however, as the WolfPack again led wire-to-wire in the fourth set. With the T-Birds unable to find any consistent offence outside of Borowski and Glanville, the hosts were able to capitalize on UBC errors and grind out enough kills of their own to take a comfortable-in-the-end win to go up 2-1 in set count.
 
The fourth set provided a familiar feeling, with the WolfPack again taking the early lead and not relinquishing it. In the end it proved to be their biggest set win of the night at 25-12, as they improved to 4-1 to begin the season.
 
Now 3-2, the Thunderbirds will aim to even the score with the WolfPack tomorrow in Kamloops, with first serve at 3:00 p.m. (PT) on CanadaWest.tv.