LANGLEY, British Columbia – The No. 2 Trinity Western Spartans rallied from a two set deficit to defeat the UBC Thunderbirds 3-2 in Saturday evening’s match at the Langley Events Centre in Langley, B.C. The 18-25, 21-25, 25-12, 25-22, and 15-8 victory avenges TWU 3-0 Friday night loss to the Thunderbirds and improves the Spartans to 9-1, while dropping the Thunderbirds to 7-5.
Brodie Hofer (Langley, B.C.) with 15 kills, and seven service aces, Jesse Elser (Calgary) with 14 kills, 8 digs and three blocks, and Henry Rempel (Swift Current, Sask.) with 12 kills and nine digs led the Spartans on the night. While Matt Neaves (Calgary) with 20 kills and four aces, and Conaire Taub (Calgary) with eight kills and two aces led the Thunderbirds. TWU’s Anselm Rein (Erfurt, Germany) led the Spartans offence with 42 set assists, while his UBC counterpart Mason Greves (Calgary) had 37 assists for the Thunderbirds.
The Spartans started slowly and were overmatched in the first two sets, which saw UBC hit at an impressive .571 to TWU’s .286 in the opening set. However, a 10-1 run, with Hofer hitting six aces, to open the third set turned the tide of the match as TWU earned a decisive 25-12 third set win. The Spartans offence got better as the match progressed hitting at .346 in the fourth set and .455 in the fifth, while holding the Thunderbirds to .200 in the fourth and .235 in the fifth.
QUOTABLE TWU Head Coach Adam Schriemer
“Brodie’s run was massive – he just started applying pressure on them. When UBC gets in rhythm, it’s because they put pressure on the serve, but they weren’t able to get that pressure when we got in our rhythm. We were also able to get more block to transition opportunities, and once we did that, we were able to play more of a balanced game. Brodie’s run opened up all of our phases. Tayler [Roxburgh] (Langley, B.C.) was sweet. We threw him into our serve receive, and he did really well. He was sharp.
“I think we slowly started to find more ways to apply pressure as the game went on – mainly with our serve. We stopped breaking on their tough serves, and when we have the opportunity to hit is when we’re at our best. We were able to clean up our first and second contact so we could get the chances we needed to.
“Such a good atmosphere tonight. We always talk about protecting home court, and we did that this semester, which is huge.”
NOTABLE
• The Spartans are now 59-25 lifetime against the Thunderbirds.
• TWU finished the night hitting .290 (52-16-124), while UBC hit at .259 (45-17-108).
• The Spartans had a 52-45 edge in kills and a 12-9 edge in service aces.
• The Thunderbirds had a 39-34 edge in digs on the match.
UP NEXT
The Spartans will now head to Edmonton to finish of the first semester against the MacEwan Griffins. Match times on Friday, December 2 and Saturday, December 3 are set for 8 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. MT. Both matches can be seen live on CanadaWest.TV.
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. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 13 U SPORTS team championships and 32 Canada West team championships.