VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds fed off the nearly 900 boisterous fans in attendance to power past the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack 3-1 (25-23, 25-21, 10-25, 25-15) at the annual Thunderstruck festival, highlighting women in sports Friday night at War Memorial Gym.
Anna Price led the way for the T-Birds with 13 kills and two service aces, Gabrielle Attieh added another 13 kills while Jayde Robertsen and Heather Pippus chipped in with eight kills each. Kendra Finch recorded a match high 17 kills for TRU and Olga Savenchuk delivered nine more for the visitors.
“I was really pleased with how we came out,” said UBC head coach Doug Reimer. “That’s a team that has only lost one match this season, and they have some very experienced players, so the way we won the tight first two sets was really good. The third set showed the balance there can be and what they could do when we weren’t really going. The biggest complement to our team is how we rebounded in that fourth set after they were rolling.”
An exciting first set saw the teams trade points before a Robertsen service ace put UBC up 11-7 causing TRU to call a timeout. The hosts would keep the pressure on en route to a Price kill that led to a 16-12 advantage at the technical timeout. An Attieh kill followed by a block put the ‘Birds ahead 22-19 before Kseniya Kocyigit delivered an emphatic kill, one of her five in the opening set to bring the visitors within one at 23-22. In the end, it was Price delivering her fourth kill of the frame to clinch the 25-23 victory and 1-0 lead.
To open the second set TRU executed well in building a 9-5 lead and forcing UBC to take a timeout. The break allowed the ‘Birds to regroup as Heather Pippus took over with two consecutive kills, the first leading to set point before striking again to secure the 25-21 win and 2-0 advantage. Price led the ‘Birds with six kills in the set followed by Pippus and Attieh with three each, meanwhile for TRU Finch delivered a set high four kills.
The third set was all TRU with the visitors jumping out to a 5-0 lead and causing UBC to call an early timeout. The Wolfpack would continue to pour it on en route to a convincing 25-10 win to pull within one at 2-1. Leading the way for TRU was Savenchuk, Finch and Gabriela Podolski with three kills each while Kocyigit added two kills of her own.
After a disjointed third frame the T-Birds rebounded well in the fourth and despite Finch registering a set high eight kills for the visitors, it was back to back kills from Robertsen and Gabrielle Attieh that gave the ‘Birds a 21-15 lead to force a TRU timeout. Following the break, a Pippus service ace led to a UBC match point before Price delivered the final kill for the 25-15 win and 3-1 match victory.
“It’s great to have to yell in time outs,” added Reimer when asked about the noise from a raucous Thunderstruck festival crowd. “It wasn’t just the number of people but they were also really engaged in the event. It was a great crowd how do we handle those situations with a lot of younger players as well. I think it’s a great night, you see so many young women out there and students are getting autographs from our team. I think we achieved what we wanted to do and I’m just glad we played well enough to make it entertaining.”
Reimer also spoke to the total team effort displayed by his squad tonight
“My first star tonight would go to Laura Worsley. I thought she was dialed in the whole time with her passing, defence off balls, covering to extend rallies – especially in times we weren’t executing very well. I don’t think she ever wavered. Heather also stepped up. We’ve been rotating left sides through there which isn’t an easy situation, Heather hasn’t started in a few weeks and she did well. I think offensively Anna is a smaller hitter who got some big blocks. Especially through those first two sets she had some clutch attacking.”
With the win, the T-Birds improved to 6-3 on the season while the Wolfpack suffered just their second loss of the campaign, now sitting at 7-2. The teams meet again Saturday night for a 5:00 p.m. PT start at War Memorial Gym.
[SOURCE: UBC]