Cougars claim CW bronze ending T-Birds’ season

EDMONTON – A tremendous playoff run for the UBC Thunderbirds came to an abrupt end Saturday afternoon with a straight sets loss to the Mount Royal Cougars in the Canada West bronze medal match at Edmonton’s Saville Centre.

The win (25-19, 25-17, 25-9) clinches a berth at next week’s U SPORTS National Championship for the Cougars for the first time in program history, while the T-Birds will have to wait until March 2023 for their return to the big stage when the tournament will be hosted at UBC.

“Today, I think we came prepared to compete. I was really impressed with how our team, for a short turnaround, was ready to go. But, Mount Royal played very well,” said UBC Head Coach Doug Reimer shortly after his team’s season came to a close. “They served tough consistently and that played a part in our inability to get our offence rolling. Credit to them for the serving pressure which allowed them to play good block defence, and they were firing on all aspects of their offence, so truly deserving to carry on their season and represent the Canada West at the national championship.”

Nyadholi Thokbuom led MRU with 10 kills on 19 swings, with Madison Marshall and Jessica Osczevski adding six each. Quinn Pelland finished with a game-high 26 assists.

Cara Kovacs led UBC with seven kills while Kayla Oxland put up 17 assists.

While neither team was overly efficient in the first set, Mount Royal used a balanced attack to take the frame 25-19.

UBC scored just eight kills total on 32 swings, committing eight errors in the first. Kovacs led the T-Birds with four kills on nine attempts, with UBC adding six total team blocks.

Mount Royal turned up their efficiency in the second, cruising to a 25-17 set win. The Cougars scored nine kills on just 21 attempts, led by four from Madison Marshall, and two each from Haley Roe and Osczevski.

The T-Birds netted eight kills of their own, but committed another seven errors. UBC also added seven service errors in a sloppy second set.

Holding all of the momentum after two, the Cougars throttled UBC in the third, scoring 13 kills on 24 attempts, not recording a single error. UBC mustered just 4 kills, adding 11 errors in the third, losing 25-9.

In a season full of injuries and difficult schedules that saw UBC spend each of the last four weekends on the road, the resilience shown by the T-Birds will only serve them well come the fall and what should be an exciting 2022-23 season culminating with hosting the national tournament at War Memorial Gym.

“It’s hard to factor in how much that four straight weekends away and the stress on the athletes both physically but mentally played into it, keeping up with studies and having to prepare for six different opponents,” Reimer added. “I think it had to have been a bit of a factor, but we don’t like to use that as an excuse. “I am very proud of this group and what they’ve shown over the last few months. It’s always a little heartbreaking especially seeing the fifth-year players who won’t be back, that they won’t get another chance, and to get so close, to getting back to the national championship.”