VANCOUVER – The No. 2-ranked Trinity Western Spartans lost for the first time in the regular season, dropping a 3-0 (25-19, 25-16, 25-16) decision against UBC Friday at War Memorial Gym.
The Thunderbirds improved to 7-4 on the season with what stands as their first regular season win over the Spartans since Jan. 25, 2019. TWU, who is now 8-1, had previously won six straight regular season contests with the ‘Birds.
With a strong serving game, which saw UBC own a 9-2 advantage in aces, UBC was largely in control of the match from start to finish. Forced to play out of system much of the night, TWU had just a .154 attacking percentage compared to UBC’s .438.
Brodie Hofer (Langley, B.C.) had a team-high 10 kills, while Henry Rempel (Swift Current, Sask.) added nine kills.
UBC was led offensively by Matt Neaves, who had 14 kills while hitting .684.
QUOTABLE Adam Schriemer – Interim Co-Head Coach “We got beat by a team who was a lot better than us tonight. The good thing is hopefully we can put together a plan to be better than them tomorrow.
“We broke on our serve receive. We either got aced or overpassed. We didn’t have the chance to create plays. I also don’t know if we approached that match with the appropriate attention to detail that it needed.
“We see serves like that quite often. When it’s from a different player, it’s going to be slightly different but there’s nothing about that speed that we haven’t seen before. We just weren’t good enough today.
“We have to find a way to manage their serves and we also need to show a lot more toughness and togetherness to compete against a team like that.”
NOTABLE • The three-set loss marked only the second time in TWU history they have taken a 3-0 loss in the regular season against UBC. The only other 3-0 loss in the regular season against UBC was Feb. 2, 2007. • All told, TWU has only lost to UBC in three sets four times in program history.
UP NEXT TWU and UBC play the back half of their home-and-home series Saturday at the Langley Events Centre at 7 p.m. (PT).
About Spartan Athletics As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women’s and men’s soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women’s rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men’s rugby, as well as women’s and men’s disc golf. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 13 U SPORTS team championships and 31 Canada West team championships.
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