VANCOUVER – Facing off against a young, hungry Calgary Dinos side, the Thunderbirds stood firm and managed to close out the first match of their best-of-three Canada West Quarterfinal series with a 3-0 victory (25-15, 25-20, 29-27).
The Dinos improved dramatically in each set, even leading for much of the third before the T-Birds managed to find the clutch plays they needed to avoid going to a fourth set.
"I thought Calgary started passing the ball a lot better, and I thought Matthew Brown did a good job running their offence," remarked UBC head coach
Mike Hawkins. "They hit around .100 in the first set and then .318, .250 after that. That's a good setter making some plays."
Brown finished with 26 assists, many of them going to Will Kay who landed 14 kills on a .500 hitting percentage, good for nearly half of his team's total kills.
On the side of the Thunderbirds,
Reeve Gingera led the way with 16 kills and five digs, while
Alex Borowski had 11 kills and three digs.
Mason and
Logan Greves each provided highlights on their birthdays, with Mason recording 34 assists, nine digs and two blocks, and Logan earning four digs and two assists – with two of those digs coming in dramatic fashion on the final play of the match.
"I really liked our service pressure all night," added Hawkins, whose team tallied six aces, three of them from
Alex Emery. "I think some of our errors were loud service errors, but in the end six aces with 11 errors, you'll take that ratio…I said to the guys, even when we didn't feel like we had a rhythm, we still hit over .300 the entire match, and at the end of the day we made the plays we needed to."
The 'Birds dominated the first set of action, taking a big early lead and never being truly challenged before they eventually closed out a 10-point win.
Kieran Robinson-Dunning tallied four big kills in the frame, including three in quick succession in the late stages to put a stamp on the emphatic opener.
The second was a different story, as the Dinos didn't let the T-Birds pull away in the same fashion. Kills from Cole and Ethan Czepuryk helped tie up the score at 14-14, and it remained very tight until a burst of four straight points pushed the UBC lead out to 23-18.
Kay tried to will his team back into things with a couple late kills, but
Mason Greves landing a kill on his own followed soon after by a Dinos service error ended the set at 25-20.
The third was the best one for Calgary, as they ripped off a 6-1 run in the early stages to go up 11-7, capped by yet another kill from Kay. The T-Birds hung around, but couldn't get over the hump and retake the lead for themselves.
At one point down 23-20, the home team rallied and scored four of the next five points to send the set past the 25-point barrier, with three of those points being Gingera kills. The Calgary native also put a couple key serves across the net to set up crucial points, and eventually provided the assist for Borowski to end the night with a kill.
"The 16 kills are super cool, but to me it's the two serves he hit at the end," said Hawkins on Gingera's performance. "That's a really high-pressure situation, in a set where I think he kind of lost some of his rhythm. But that tells you everything you need to know about the mental makeup of that kid, and that's what you need when the pressure's on – you need to be able to step up and have the confidence you can make a play, and he hit two great serves."
The Thunderbirds and Dinos will renew acquaintances Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. (PT), with the T-Birds needing just one more win to advance to the Canada West Final Four.
