The Ubyssey’s Most Valuable Player: Lucy Borowski

Here it is, the final award. We’ve saved the biggest for last — no qualifiers here, purely the most valuable player to their team, across all UBC varsity sport. Yet, while MVP is the most prestigious award we’ll be giving out, it’s a bit hard to define.

It’s not defined by a type of play, like Offensive or Defensive Player of the Year. It’s not defined by a situation, like Rookie of the Year or Breakout Player of the Year. Instead, it’s about everything. It’s considering all aspects of what a player brings to the table, like how their skill set, their play, their demeanour — again, everything — impacts the team. Our MVP should be a team’s most important piece, a core part of what brings them success, a player that, once they leave, should be near impossible to replace. Or, to avoid overcomplicating it — they just have to be the best.

As a refresher, each one of our beat writers from the sports team nominated one athlete for this category, then, after discussion among us, we voted for the winner. Reporters could not vote for their own nomination, and in the case of a tie, Caleb Peterson, the Sports & Recreation Editor, would cast the deciding vote. This was our voting committee:

Luiza Teixeira: Women’s Hockey Reporter
Maia Cesario: Women’s Soccer Reporter + Women’s Basketball Reporter
Ian Cooper: Men’s Basketball Reporter
Sofia Campanholo: Women’s Volleyball Reporter + Men’s Soccer Reporter
Annaliese Gumboc: Football Reporter
Caleb Peterson: Sports & Recreation Editor + Men’s Hockey Reporter

And here was our discussion.

Nominations:

(Caleb Peterson | Men’s Hockey): For men's hockey, I am going to renominate Sasha Mutala. As I said in the Offensive Player of the Year discussion, for Men’s Hockey, the difference-maker was that entire top line, if I could pick a grouping. But to pick a player, it has to be Mutala, the Canada West player of the year. He's really been driving this UBC offence the entire time he's been there.

He’s by far their best offensive player, by far their best offensive creator. He's got great vision, he can set up his teammates. That offence doesn't really work without his scoring touch, and their offence was fantastic. UBC would not have had their best regular season in history if he did not play as well as he did. So for Men's Hockey, I’m going with Mutala.

(Maia Cesario | Women’s Soccer): This is kind of an insane pull for Most Valuable Player, I'm not even going to lie. I was also thinking of nominating Dakota Beckett or Olivia Weekes. But, Zoelle Apps was the unsung hero of UBC's defence this year. She had her first goal as a Thunderbird this year while playing centre back, which, if you know soccer, that's really the root of your defence.

She's a leader on the team, despite only being in second year. She played some good minutes last year, but this season, she had to step into a major role, and she really rose to the challenge.

She was incredible, being a big part of them not allowing any goals in the regular season. For a second-year player, she was playing like a senior on the team. She was invaluable to UBC on defence, starting every game.

If you're thinking about Most Valuable Player, you might think about who scored the most, or who had the best statistics. Obviously, that wouldn't be her, but I do think that she was the most valuable player on the field for them.

(Luiza Teixeira | Women’s Hockey): I'm nominating Grace Elliott — just like for Offensive Player of the Year, I mean, there is no other choice.

Back-to-back Canada West player of the year. Broke Hayley Wickenheiser’s game-winning goals in a season record. Top 10 in points in Canada West for four straight years. In her last two years, she was the highest scorer in the conference and the country. An easy pick.

(Annaliese Gumboc | Football): I'm going to go with Shemar McBean again. You know, I've already talked about how good his stats were as a wide receiver in our Offensive Player of the Year discussion, but as one of the only veteran players left over from last year, I think his presence was a real reason that the wide receiver room did so well compared to a lot of other areas on the team.

He has amazing ability as a receiver. He was a big reason that this offence was even able to produce as well as it did. He has some amazing, highlight reel catches. Yeah, there's just no one else like this offence couldn't function without him.

(Ian Cooper | Men’s Basketball): I'm picking Nikola Guzina, obviously. Anybody who knows anything about UBC basketball knows about him. I think he's arguably one of the more famous student-athletes here, people know who he is.

He was the hub of both their offence and defence. Even though his defensive numbers aren't super gaudy, people clearly do not want to challenge him in the paint because of his size. Then, on offence, he was just the most important to the team overall, a clear choice here.

(Sofia Campanholo | Women’s Volleyball): I'm going with Lucy Borowski again. I think that even though we talked about her stats in the Offensive Player of the Year discussion, and how not just overall, but in every game, she is usually the person with the highest number of kills. But honestly, I don't think UBC would have won, most of the games they won this year without her. Every single rally you watch, she is always there. She's always assisting. She is the core of that team. She's one of the best players UBC has ever had, in my opinion, for women’s volleyball.

It's just insane. She won MVP last year in the U Sports championship. She was also the only UBC player for the women's volleyball to be on the all-Canadian team this year, and is the only player from UBC to be first team all-Canadian since 2019. She's also been on the national team since summer 2023. She's just an amazing player, when she goes for her kill, it's actually unstoppable.

Verdict:

While all were incredibly deserving nominees, perhaps nobody embodies the spirit of this award better than our eventual winner. In her final year as a Thunderbird, Lucy Borowski is our MVP. Here are the voting results:

Women’s Volleyball: Lucy Borowski – 3
Men’s Hockey: Sasha Mutala – 1
Men’s Basketball: Nikola Guzina – 1
Women’s Hockey: Grace Elliott – 1
Football: Shemar McBean – 0
Women’s Soccer: Zoelle Apps – 0

(Caleb Peterson | Sports + Rec Editor): After our vote for Offensive Player of the Year — a slate that was essentially the same as this, sans Zoelle Apps — something felt off. While we were confident in our near-unanimous choice of Grace Elliott for the award, leaving Borowski with no votes didn’t feel right.

After all, she’s been a core piece of Women’s Volleyball through their immense run of success in the past few years, winning two national championships in her time here, and, as Sofia mentioned, winning championship MVP for the latter title. Even though she and her team didn’t win a championship this year, she arguably had her best season this year, with nearly 100 more kills than the year prior. She was dominant, a clear leader on the court — especially so as the only fifth-year player on the active roster (with Akash Grewal sidelined for most of the year).

While Women’s Volleyball is perhaps the best setup varsity team to sustain their success into next year — with only Borowski and Grewal graduating, retaining essentially their entire roster that placed second in the conference in the regular season — they somehow simultaneously feel like they’re facing the most turnover of any team. That’s how much of an impact Borowski makes. Their offence runs through her.

That’s perhaps the best case to make for Borowski’s candidacy. All of our nominees except for Apps will be gone next season, and while all will be sorely missed, none will leave a bigger hole in the roster than Borowski. With how many fantastic athletes had great seasons this year, it’s not an easy choice, but we feel it is the right one. For our final award, Lucy Borowski is our MVP.

And with that, we conclude our 2026 Ubyssey Sports Awards. As a recap, here are our winners for each award:

That’s a wrap for the 2025-26 season. It was an up-and-down year for UBC sports, with some truly historic moments and performances — from Women’s Soccer’s perfect regular season, to Women’s Rugby’s championship win — but also plenty of playoff heartbreak, from Women's Soccer, Men’s Soccer, Women’s Hockey, Men’s Hockey … the list goes on. While plenty of players are graduating out this off-season, most rosters are still stocked with talent to compete again next year, and in most cases, they’ll have unfinished business.

As for The Ubyssey’s Sports section, we’ll be back next season. We will greatly expand our coverage for all varsity sports, not just with the game analyses we’ve been focusing our efforts on this year, but also with more profiles, extended reports and analytical pieces. For now, we’d like to thank you all for following along, not just with these awards, but across the season, with all our coverage. Continue to watch for more to come in 2026-27.

First online April 30, 2026, 11:07 p.m.