‘Birds top Bobcats in defensive-minded home opener

War Memorial Gym was a spooky place to be for the Brandon Bobcats on Halloween night, as the UBC Thunderbirds took them down to get their first win of the season.

Gavin Moes recorded 13 kills, four digs and two aces for the T-Birds, while Dawson Pratt tallied eight kills, 14 digs and four blocks. Mason Greves contributed all over the court with 30 assists, six kills and nine digs.

Both teams fought hard defensively, combining for 101 digs and 21 blocks on the night. The T-Birds had a hitting percentage under .100 in each of the first two sets, before tallying a monstrous .565 in the third and .222 to close out the match in the fourth.

“We knew coming into this weekend it was going to be a dogfight,” said Thunderbirds head coach Mike Hawkins. “Brandon is a great team – they’re really a difficult team to play, they just make you uncomfortable…with it being such a tough start, we ended up having one less attack error than them, one less serve error, and out-dug them and blocked really well.”

J.J. Love tallied 31 assists, seven digs and six blocks for the visitors, while Tom Friesen put up nine kills, five digs and three blocks.

The first set (as would become a theme for much of the night) was very back-and-forth, with UBC finding themselves down through the middle portion of the frame before a kill from Reeve Gingera knotted the score at 15.

After Pratt made it 18-16 for the hosts with a kill of his own, the Bobcats made a big push with a 5-2 run to take a slim lead late on. From there though it was all UBC, as a string of kills was capped off by an ace from Nicholas Johnson to take the set 25-21.

The Thunderbirds jumped out to an early lead in the second, and a kill by Greves put them up 8-6. After a big block by Gingera and Kieran Robinson-Dunning made it 15-12 the T-Birds looked like they might pull away, but Brandon came right back with some massive blocks of their own.

The Bobcats then turned it on in the late stages of the set, turning an 18-18 tie into a 25-22 win for the Manitoba outfit.

That momentum swung right back in favour of the home team, however, as the Thunderbirds were electric in the third set. Multiple kills from Moes and Robinson-Dunning keyed a 6-0 UBC lead and the ‘Birds never looked back from there.

Greves got one of the biggest cheers of the night when he won a joust at the net against big Bobcats middle blocker Philipp Lauter to make it 20-10. The T-Birds cruised to a 25-13 set win as they recorded 13 kills and zero attack errors in the frame.

The fourth set was more of a return to form of the first couple, as the two teams found themselves tied five times in a row from 6-6 up to 10-10, before the Bobcats finally opened up a multi-point edge.

That didn’t last for long though, as UBC fired back with a 4-1 burst finished off by a kill from Pratt to take a 14-13 lead. The Bobcats called a timeout after an ace from Greves made it 18-16, but a comeback was not in the cards.

The Thunderbirds pulled away from there, and Gingera ended the night with back-to-back aces to a roar from the crowd.
 

?? MVB | Second-year outside hitter Dawson Pratt tied his career-high with 15 digs in @ubcmvb‘s home opener ??

He talks his team’s defence and getting a big win over Brandon tonight #GoBirdsGo pic.twitter.com/uzST7r1W2b

— UBC Thunderbirds (@ubctbirds) November 1, 2024

UBC improves to 1-2 with the win, getting off the mark after a pair of tough losses to Winnipeg two weekends ago.

“The guys have been working really hard in practice since our Winnipeg weekend,” added Hawkins. “The bye gave us an opportunity to get back to the drawing board, work on some things, and it paid dividends tonight.”

The Bobcats will seek to avenge their loss on Friday with a rematch in War Memorial Gym. Opening serve is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. (PT).