How Lucy Borowski finds success in a ‘game of mistakes’

It's hard to attend a Thunderbirds women’s volleyball match without noticing Lucy Borowski. With 267 kills this regular season so far, she is the definition of a powerhouse on and off the court.

At only 22 years old, the Vancouver native has been named a first-team all-Canadian player, played for the Canadian National Team, won the Most Valuable Player Award at the national championship in 2025 and being president of the Thunderbird Athletes Council.

But Borowski’s story didn’t start with a born passion for volleyball. In fact, neither of her parents played. She said her mother “doesn't know anything about volleyball.” Her journey began in a simpler way.

In elementary school, Borowski’s PE teacher approached her and encouraged her to play volleyball. Borowski played many other sports during her childhood, but none of them caught her attention as much as volleyball did. She loved how the sport allowed you to be aggressive — and also be at fault. To many people, this would be too much pressure, but to Borowski, it is actually what makes it fun.

“It's a game of mistakes,” she said. “You're allowed to swing away at the ball and make a mistake, and that's part of the game. I really enjoyed that.”

That doesn’t mean she isn't nervous. She just hides it well. For UBC head coach Doug Reimer, this underlying stress isn’t obvious because the high level of performance she delivers often obscures part of the work — mental and physical — that she had to put in to reach this level. It’s about taking those mistakes and learning from them.

This has been clear through Borowski’s improvement during her five years as a T-Bird. During this time, Borowski has switched positions twice, starting her Thunderbirds’ journey as a setter.

“I think on the first point I ever played, I went to set, and the ball fell through my hands,” said Borowski. Now, as a senior outside hitter, her improvement has been very noticeable — and she gives a lot of credit to coach Reimer.

The head coach has been with her since the beginning and has been an immense force in her improvement as a player. Early in her career, Reimer pushed her to believe in herself, giving her chances to prove herself in games against strong teams, even as an inexperienced, young player. This early vote of confidence helped her both as a player and as a person.

Of course, he cares about the technicalities — but one of the things that matters the most to him is the player’s mindset. It’s not about being perfect, but instead, the best you can be in each game.

“I still get nervous to play every single time, but I'd say now I can go in and I can still do my job nervous, which is the biggest area of growth I've seen in myself,” Borowski said.

That doesn't mean he doesn’t push his players when needed. As players get older, the higher his standards become. But those high standards are because of his belief in what his players are capable of.

Reimer has watched Borowski develop immensely through his years coaching her, and that’s because of how committed to improvement she is. To him, her presence on the court has a dramatic affect how the entire team plays.

“When she is playing well, she can be close to unstoppable in the front row,” he said. “[Lucy is] just a good server, good attacker, blocker, passer, defender — key skill areas.”

The team’s lead assistant coach, Jodi Zbyszewski, expressed similar sentiments.

“I just love her determination and commitment to the sport. I love how much she's grown in the time I've been coaching her,” she said. “She's someone who wants to keep going and get better and challenge herself and challenge those around her.”

But for a player to become as great as Borowski is, an amazing coach is not enough — they also need a strong relationship with their teammates. Luckily, for Borowski, this is not an issue.

Her connection with Akash Grewal – her only teammate also in her fifth year — goes all the way back to when their high school teams would play against each other. That competition only gave Borowski more reasons to look up to her, with Grewal coming to the T-Birds a year before Borowski. For Borowski, Grewal’s leadership resonated on and off the court — an example she’s needed to echo in the last few years, serving as role models to younger players — and not just those on her team.

In 2025, Borowski started coaching with Zbyszewski’s youth team — and immediately made an impact. Those kids adore her. They go to her matches, make posters reflecting the support that she shows them when coaching. There are echoes of her own head coach in how she has taught them — mindset comes first.

“I think that's what makes her a really great mentor, especially to the younger kids,” she said. “Take volleyball aside. It's more that if you work hard and you want to do something, you can do it. And it's not always going to be easy, but it's possible. I think she's taught those girls that.”

To Zbyszewski, she is the definition of leading by example. Borowski doesn't just tell them the value of persistence when you want to be good at something you love – she demonstrates it in her actions.

For most people, dealing with academics, UBC and volleyball altogether would probably leave no room for other commitments in their lives. But for Borowski, there is something else that she has a huge role in: the Thunderbird Athletes Council (TAC).

Borowski is the president of the council, which requires her to represent and give a voice to the student athletes at UBC. Even though it’s a demanding job, she really enjoys how she can connect with people from other sports – something that, without the TAC presidency, would not be possible. As a university student, she also gets to have fun that goes beyond the bureaucratic part of the role, such as planning parties and events for the T-Birds. It’s reflective of something both Reimer and Zbyszewski praised Borowski for — being not just a student athlete, not just an exceptional student, but someone who actively contributes to the community.

“I've definitely improved my time management over my time at UBC,” said Borowski. “I would not say I was great at it in my first year, but I think I've learned to adapt and focus on what really matters,” Borowski said.

This determination is something Reimer appreciates as well. For a young team, Borowski’s work ethic has been infectious. Even if they usually do not play much in their first years — as Reimer prefers to play the older, more experienced players more often in matches — Borowski has seen the younger girls keep working hard and improving every day. A large reason why may be because of the example Borowski has set. It’s also why, to Zbyszewski, Borowski's graduation will leave a mark on the team.

“She's just been such a constant, an amazing young woman on and off the court,” she said. “It's definitely a loss to the team on the court, but it's almost a bigger loss off the court.”

This doesn’t mean that there haven’t been results on the court, however. All of her hard work led Borowski and the Thunderbirds to some huge accomplishments, both as a team and individually. For her, she considers their second straight U Sports title in 2024 the biggest highlight of her five years as a Thunderbird.

“It's hard to win back-to-back years, but everyone was just so determined,” she said. As a third-year back then, for Borowski, the older players at the time were a huge motivation for the rest of the team. “You could see it in their eyes, [we] were going to win.”

And unlike in 2023, when she was not playing as much against the big teams, in 2024, Borowski was essential to the T-Birds’ championship run. Her performance throughout the post-season was so great that she was honoured with the tournament’s Most Valuable Player Award.

In 2025, almost a year after she was recognized as MVP, Borowski was honoured again, but this time as a First-Team all-Canadian player. While she was quick to redirect the recognition towards her teammates, these accolades show that she’s not just considered great at UBC, but also among coaches around the country.

“It's validating to know that other coaches think you're doing a good job, and to just be recognized with other amazing players,” she said.

Even with many awards, titles and recognition, one of Borowski’s biggest challenges throughout her years as a Thunderbird has been managing her own self-criticism. It’s something she’s had to wrestle with even more since she joined the Canadian national team, given the increased responsibility that comes with it.

This is where Reimer’s emphasis on process is key. It’s an understanding that everyone on the team makes mistakes, that she doesn’t have to take it all on herself. For Reimer, it’s an instinct he believes is very common for great athletes, in every sport.

“90 per cent of the time, it's a real strength. Because they're working to get better,” he said. “[But] there's a balance there between always trying to be better, but also having an understanding, especially when other teams are keying on you, that all athletes make mistakes.”

Borowski has been a part of the national team since the summer of 2023, fresh off her second year at UBC. Now, in 2025, she is playing for the senior team, under a new coach — Giovanni Guidetti — who is considered one of the best in the sport. This promotion surprised her, because not only had she switched positions for the T-Birds, but Guidetti also switched her from the right side of the court to the left.

“It was a long process,” Borowski said. “We had two weeks of tryouts, and then every week after that, he would cut more people. Every week it was kind of like, ‘I hope I'm not going home this week!’ It was a grind to try and stay on the team, but overall, such an amazing experience.”

Reimer immediately noticed Borowski’s improvement when she returned last summer from the national team practices and games — and not in one specific area, but across the board.

“Her switch in terms of position, [alongside her] ability to move from being a right side player to the left side, and having to pass and hit on the opposite side … [it is] not an easy change to make, especially from fourth year to fifth year,” he said.

For Borowski, not only was her experience on the national team great because they got to practice and travel around the world, to countries like China and Mexico, but also because it motivated her to remain on the team, trying to continue improving with the knowledge of this new coach.

“My sights are set on trying to be there again, because he’s just such an incredible coach, and I would just love to keep learning from him,” she said.

The Canadian national senior team isn’t where her ambition stops, however. Borowski is in search of a contract in Europe for 2027, attempting to continue her career overseas, while also still coming back to campus to watch her brother — who is also a player for the UBC men’s volleyball team.

Whether she starts a career in Europe, continues her development on the national team, or something else entirely, Zbyszewski, who has coached Borowski since high school, has no doubts that Borowski has all the skills — as a player and as a person — that she needs to go far.

"Whatever she wants to do, she's going to be able to do … she's grown, she has shown that she can achieve what she wants to set out for,” Zbyszewski said. “She's a great kid, and I really would just encourage her to keep going on that path.”

Wherever she ends up post-graduation, Borowski is lucky enough to have two special role models in her life to show her the way — the first is her mom. Even if she is not an athlete, she inspires her daughter to keep trying her best on and off the court, especially through her kindness and her thoughtful encouragement.

Her other role model, however, does come from the world of volleyball: Thunderbird alumni and current team Canada player Kacey Jost, who played with Borowski at UBC until 2024.

Jost demonstrates everything that made Borowski fall in love with the sport when she was a kid: she is eager and impassioned on the court, an intensity that may have scared Borowski in her first year. But with time, as Borowski's skills improved and she and Jost became closer, this trepidation turned into inspiration — she began to see her as powerful. Now, Jost's presence as a player motivates Borowski both as a female athlete and as a woman.

“I think we can all strive for that. We don't need to be quiet or make ourselves smaller,” Borowski said. “She's just such a fierce competitor, and I hope I can start to embody that more when I play.”

For Borowski, being able to learn from and with a player like Jost was invaluable, especially as a young student-athlete. According to Reimer, in her final year as a T-Bird, Borowski already is, to many young players, what Jost was for her.

“When your most experienced player is working really hard, that sets a great tone,” he said. “I think Lucy’s really grown in her ability to support other players while she's still shouldering a big load on the court.”

Currently standing at 6’2”, for Borowski, she wasn’t always happy with being taller — especially when she was younger — as it made her feel out of place. Now, she sees things in a different way.

“You don't need to make yourself smaller or try to fit in, or try to be quiet because you're tall, [or] even if you're not tall, just as a woman,” she said. “You're allowed to be loud and fiery, and you're allowed to get mad during games, be competitive … You can be whoever you want to be on the court.”