VANCOUVER, B.C. – Trinity Western took down the UBC Thunderbirds in a four set victory (25-18, 25-22, 23-25, 29-27) at the War Memorial Gym on Saturday.
The Spartans (10-0) remain undefeated through conference play, while the loss slots UBC (5-5) into the third spot in Canada West’s western division.
Jordan Schnitzer (Surrey, B.C.) ended a successful night with 10 kills on a .444 kill rate. Schnitzer’s comrade in the middle, Jackson Howe (Caglary), was also a major standout for the Spartans, putting down eight kills on an astounding rate of .538.
Brodie Hofer (Langley, B.C.) did his thing once again, leading TWU in points scored (21.5) and kills (20).
AS IT HAPPENED
A heavily contested first set was blown open after UBC tied the game at 14 apiece. The Spartans ran away with it throughout the remainder of the set, outscoring the Thunderbirds 11-4 to go up 1-0 (25-18).
After the Spartans exploded for a massive run to win the first set, UBC put up a solid fight in the second. With TWU taking a commanding 24-19 lead, UBC battled back with three consecutive points until a Michael Dowhaniuk serving error led to a 25-22 finale to put TWU up 2-0.
The third set resulted in the Thunderbirds bouncing back to play their strongest set of the night. The Spartans lost control of the set early, fiddling with the lead to keep it tight, but the Thunderbirds pulled away to get on the board with a set victory (23-25).
The fourth, and final set of action ended in a 29-27 victory in favour of the Spartans. Brodie Hofer sealed the deal for the Spartans, clanging the ball off a UBC blocker to finish the Thunderbirds off.
NOTABLE
- This win improves TWU’s win streak against UBC to five, with the last loss coming in a preseason match on Oct. 5th, 2019.
- The Spartans are currently riding an impressive 19-0 record over Canada West opponents so far in the 2021-22 season. TWU’s record against all university competition is now sitting at 24-2.
QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Ben Josephson
“Another great road win, and a sweep on the road against a great volleyball team. We played eight sets together, and six were deuce, so when we’re talking about pressure, execution, and toughness, we saw two teams showing a lot of that for two nights. With all of the postponements and cancellations coming out of the break, getting a game like this is awesome for us, as I’m sure it is for UBC as well.
“The big rock of the day is balance between how to handle pressure, the reality of results, and somehow play close to our best with all of those factors in the air. With ’20 and ’21’s championships being cancelled, it has been a really long time since we’ve had intense matches. I think working through the emotions of the match, how to handle external distractions, and how to learn to be good teammates under pressure to perform to our level is learned through environments like this. We can theorize and summarize what it might be like, but tonight, we found out what it is like, and what it does feel like to be under pressure, to stare a result in the face that you’re happy with.
“We’re super happy to have this come up on Jan. 28th and 29th. It gives two months to build before March 26th, where we’ll hopefully be talking about another intense match and how we dealt with it. The more environments we’re in that help us learn to be comfortable under pressure, the better we’ll perform when it really matters.
“Amazing weekend with some great competiton. Hats off to UBC for a really well-played weekend. Can’t wait to see them again in a couple of weeks.”
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 12 U SPORTS team championships and 29 Canada West team championships.
-TW-