Coming off of a split against the Thompson River Wolfpack, the UBC women’s volleyball team dropped two games against Canada West’s second best team — the Trinity Western University Spartans (TWU) — at home and on the road.
In the first game on Friday, the ’Birds suffered a 3-0 sweep by the Spartans on the home court, losing by scores of 25-23, 25-18 and 25-12. Fifth-year left side Danielle Brisebois — UBC’s leader in kills per game — again took the lead with eight kills against the Spartans.
After the loss at home, the ’Birds headed to Langley the following day to play the second game, this time losing three sets to one. The Spartans took 25-19 victories in the first two sets before UBC responded with a 27-25 win in the third. Still, the Spartans came back strong in the last set to beat the T-Birds 25-18 for the 3-1 win.
“We got off to a poor start again in the first set, so our consistency of play and consistency of competing hard wasn’t good enough,” said UBC head coach Doug Reimer after the game.
In Saturday’s game, it was Maggie Li who provided much of the firepower for the ’Birds, producing a total of nine kills to lead the team.
“I thought Li offensively did a good job for us, and we had different people come in and be able to make contributions,” said Reimer.
The Spartans were noticeably the more dominant team at the start the game, leading throughout the entire first set. Fourteen of the Spartans’ points in the opening set happened on service and attack errors by the T-Birds.
The ’Birds then showed some stronger momentum to open the second set, leading by as much as 5-1 before giving up five straight points to the Spartans. The remainder of the frame then became a close contest between the two teams, but it was eight unanswered points at the end of the game that turned the tide and gave the Spartans the victory.
In the third period, the Spartans looked to sweep the ’Birds for the second game of the weekend. TWU held the initial lead, but the momentum turned in UBC’s favour when the team responded with a streak of six points after a kill by Katelyn Devaney that put TWU up 21-18. The Spartans then managed to follow up with four points of their own, but it was kills by Victoria Behie and Laura MacTaggart and an error attack by TWU’s Elizabeth Wendel that secured UBC’s win.
“I give credit [to the team] in the third set for hanging in there and coming back. We were down and came back,” said Reimer.
Looking to even up the game and force a fifth set, the ’Birds again fought hard in the fourth, but ultimately lost 25-18 as the Spartans picked up five straight points to cap of the weekend.
UBC now holds a 5-3 record and sits in the fifth place spot in Canada West. Their next set of games will be against MacEwan University on the road.