WINNIPEG – First Team All-Canadian
Lucy Borowski shined with 22 kills and 17 digs as the two-time defending champion and No. 2 UBC Thunderbirds began their quest for a third straight title with a 3-1 win (25-19, 22-25, 25-19, 25-18) Friday evening over the No. 7 Saskatchewan Huskies.
Borowski registered a .391 hitting percentage along with 17 digs, while
Akash Grewal had 16 kills, 11 digs and three aces in the final quarterfinal match of the 2025 U SPORTS Women's Volleyball Championship at the Investors Group Athletic Centre in Winnipeg.
Trinity Solecki (17 digs) and
Olivia Furlan (14) added to the defensive efforts and
Issy Robertshaw tallied 43 assists in a rematch of the CW semifinal, won in straight sets by UBC. The T-Birds as a team tallied 61 kills, while holding the Huskies to just 28 on a .115 hitting percentage.
On the Saskatchewan side, Rosetta Cyr registered 10 kills and seven digs, while Tielle Hagel and Gabrielle Flaman had 13 digs each.
The Thunderbirds had their most efficient offensive set in the first, hitting .480 as a unit and tallying three aces, two of them from Grewal. The Vancouver native also landed five kills in the frame, accompanied by five from Borowski and three from Solecki. The final score was 25-19 for UBC, as they showed well in their opening set of this year's nationals.
Saskatchewan came out strong in the second, shooting out to a 14-7 lead. UBC responded, however, with a massive 10-2 run to briefly take the lead. Stuck by three late on, kills from Grewal and
Emma Doyon made it 23-22, but the Huskies staved off the final comeback bid to even up the overall score.
The third was a different story, as the T-Birds fairly consistently held a lead of around three to five points throughout. They nursed things along before Solecki finished it off with an exclamation point – a kill fired right back over the net following a free ball that floated tantalizingly across to the UBC side of the court.
The fourth started out even, before the Thunderbirds reeled off seven points in a row to go up 12-5. That lead ballooned into a 23-13 advantage to put the blue and gold on the precipice of the semifinals. The Huskies battled valiantly, scoring four in a row to extend things a little longer, but the T-Birds saw things out to advance.
UBC has a familiar opponent waiting in the semifinals, in the form of the tournament hosts the Manitoba Bisons. That rematch of last year's Canada West Final (and the 2023 U SPORTS national semifinal) begins at 4:00 p.m. (PT) on Saturday.
