After a marathon two-and-a-half-hour match, the game between UBC Women’s Volleyball and the Trinity Western University Spartans still hung in the balance. Until the last point of the fifth set, the crowd at War Memorial Gymnasium was waiting with bated breath, unsure of whether the T-Birds were going to win their third-straight game, or if the Spartans were going to avenge last week’s loss against UBC.
Fortunately for the home crowd, the Thunderbirds stayed strong in the final seconds, beating the Spartans in the last set 15–13. While they came away with a win, it was hard-fought. The Spartans gave the Thunderbirds a scare throughout, hanging in every single set and often looking like the better team on Friday night.
Because of the long men’s match prior to this one, the women’s game got delayed for almost an hour. That didn’t discourage the T-Birds fans in the building. After a fifth-set win by the T-Birds’ men’s team, the energy in War Memorial before this match was more electric than ever.
Prior to this game, the TWU team came in almost undefeated, holding third place in a competitive Canada West and having won every game this season — except for one. Their only loss came against UBC, falling 3–1 to the ‘Birds last week in Langley.
On the other hand, UBC came to the match with a 5–2 record, losing in two games in a row before this back-to-back against the Spartans, falling to Manitoba, a top-ten team in the country, and Thompson Rivers, who stands at the top of Canada West so far. These two tough losses dropped UBC to fifth place in the conference. But after this UBC win, both the ‘Birds and Spartans stand with the same record.
While the Spartans were ahead of the T-Birds in the standings, the difference between these two was slim. Coming in, it was anyone’s game, especially after a close game the prior week. Thanks to a strange quirk in the schedule, the back-to-back games between these two in-province rivals were played a week apart, rather than on consecutive days as is typical.
Because of this, following UBC’s win on Nov. 14, both teams were able to spend the week studying their opponents, as UBC outside hitter Lucy Borowski described.
“I think when you beat a good team like that, they're gonna come back better,” she said. “Obviously, they watched film of us, and we watched film of them, so they know our strengths and we know their strengths. So it's hard. But yeah, I think we knew it was going to be a battle tonight.”
In that Nov. 14 match against each other, the T-Birds won the first set, but this time, TWU took the early lead, winning 25–21 in a back-and-forth set. While the T-Birds appeared more prepared for short plays — with Leonora Barbulovich-Nad making the only ace of the set and Borowski making five great kills, the most in the set for UBC — they often lost their stamina as the point went on. On longer plays, the Spartans looked like they were a bit more prepared. Ultimately, TWU’s success in taking these longer rallies decided the set. After a disappointing opening for the T-Birds, they would need to work harder to beat their rivals. Heading into the next set, UBC head coach Doug Reimer tried to spark his team.
“I told them that just our overall level, our level of execution wasn't good enough,” he said. They were making more plays, they were more dynamic than we were, and we really had to address that.”
The Spartans wouldn’t make that easy. This set started great for UBC, winning four points in a row after TWU opened the scoring before going on a spree, eventually leading the set 14–6.
That lead collapsed. Starting to look more nervous, the ‘Birds let the Spartans back in the set. In a disappointing sequence for UBC, TWU scored eight straight to tie the set at 14. After such a disappointing spree, the T-Birds needed to strike back, but while they kept up with the Spartans after this run, they never re-established their dominant lead in the set.
The Spartans’ Kaylee Plouffe was probably the best player of their team in this game, not leaving much space for the Thunderbirds. She helped keep TWU in the set with five kills, part of her 26 kills on the night. But the ‘Birds weren’t going to give in easily. Borowski, together with UBC libero Daphne Demiryol, was giving Plouffe a challenge, and was one of the main reasons that TWU couldn’t easily take a two-set lead.
This set was clearly a turning point. After the long runs of the beginning of the set, the ‘Birds and Spartans kept going blow-for-blow, staying within a point of each other until the Thunderbirds finally won the set, 35–33.
Although the sets were even now, the T-Birds did not win the second set as easily as the Spartans won the first. UBC needed to do more — 35 point sets aren’t sustainable. For Reimer, however, that level of competition is to be expected from a team like TWU.
“It wasn't that we struggled. I think Trinity played really well,” said Reimer. “As [the] teams went up and down a little bit, I thought they had some players that played really well for large portions of the match. So I was actually really pleased that we had players come back after struggling a little bit and really compete hard.”
The third set started similarly to the second, with UBC coming out stronger with a 8–5 lead, but with time, TWU caught up again. This time, the Spartans couldn’t sustain their success. TWU was much more prone to errors, powering the T-Birds to win their second straight set 25-22, with Spartans errors on four of the final six UBC points. The T-Birds closed out the set strong on offence as well, with Barbulovich-Nad having a number of great kills that helped the Thunderbirds to secure the set. At this point, the ‘Birds were playing better in every set. They had all the momentum. One could expect that this would follow for the fourth, and hopefully for UBC, last set. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Perhaps UBC got too comfortable with a two-set lead. Maybe they were getting fatigued. Either way, the team started to make mistakes they weren’t making earlier.
“I think in the fourth set we started playing really individually and not as a team, and that's why we kind of started getting hesitant, making more errors,” said Borowski. “A couple of the first years came in and did a really good job bringing us back and getting some momentum for the fifth set, and then I think we just cleaned up the little things.”
In this fourth set, TWU played much better than the T-Birds. The Spartans had two separate 6–0 runs in the set, helping them win 25–13, setting up a fifth and final set. TWU’s best players of the match, Maryn Boldon and Plouffee, helped spark this impressive performance, ending most attempts that the T-Birds made. The ‘Birds weren’t totally hopeless after this, however. Some players, despite the loss, made some amazing kills throughout the set — performances that would need to be sustained for UBC to win in the final set.
Going into the final set, it was unclear who was going to go home happy. In many ways, the Spartans played better than the T-Birds throughout the game. They had a much higher kill percentage, with .278, in comparison to UBC’s .183. They had more digs. They had more blocks. For the T-Birds to come out on top, they needed to have their best set of the game.
“I think we had a good week of training, and I think we were ready to go, but I actually think Trinity outperformed us in the start of the match,” said Reimer. “I thought Trinity really raised their play from last week.”
But UBC was not done. They have not lost at home so far this season, and were not planning to let that happen on Friday.
The fifth set began with TWU winning three points in a row, with three kills made all by Boldon, who had 23 in the game. But UBC quickly caught up. Although the team had plenty of attack errors, they made up for their mistakes by converting on offence. Led by Borowski — who had the most kills of the match for UBC with 16 — the rest of the T-Birds, including Barbulovich-Nad, Aimee Skinner, Kylee Glanville, and Jocelyn Lenarcic made kill after kill. With the help of the amazing libero Demiryol and the setter Mackenzie Campbell, they gave everything they could.
Indicative of how the game had gone so far, the entire set was back-and-forth, with neither of the teams allowing the other team to get more than a three-point difference. After a kill by Glanville late, the T-Birds finally had match point. While Boldon brought the Spartans within one, with score being 14–13 for the Thunderbirds, UBC could still win on the next point. The entire gymnasium went quiet.
In a quick moment, Skinner got good contact on a spike near the edge of the net, and as the TWU block attempt fell out-of-bounds, Skinner’s final kill secured the win for the T-Birds.
After a marathon match — one that followed a lengthy delay — UBC was finally able to celebrate, with the score at 15–13. The crowd from TWU started to leave, while the Thunderbirds fans cheered for their university.
With this win, UBC remains in fifth place, but next week, on Pride Night, they will play against Winnipeg at home, looking to build momentum from these two huge wins, hoping to change their place in the Canada West standings and fight for the title.
First online
Share this article
