EDMONTON – The UBC Thunderbirds (2-3) rallied from down a set to pull off a 3-1 (13-25, 25-12, 25-20, 25-19) win over the MacEwan Griffins (0-7) at David Atkinson Gymnasium on Friday evening.
The T-Birds pick up their first road victory of the campaign, despite getting off to a tough start against the winless Griffins. MacEwan nearly doubled up UBC in the first set, holding the ‘Birds to a negative hitting percentage as the visitors made seven errors in the opening frame.
The second set was even more one-sided, but this time the shoe was on the other foot. The blue and gold found their form and trounced their Alberta opponents in that frame, attacking at a .500 clip while holding the Griffins to a -.333 mark en route to a 25-12 UBC win.
Things leveled out for both sides in the third and fourth sets, but the T-Birds continued to attack with much more efficiency and made significantly fewer errors the rest of the way to take comfortable 25-20 and 25-19 wins.
Mason Greves was outstanding for UBC, posting titanic totals of 43 sets and 17 digs, both easily match-highs. Reeve Gingera continued to establish himself as the T-Birds top attacker, leading the match with 19 kills. Two first-year Thunderbirds also contributed in a big way, Gavin Moes had 15 kills and Toby Bergh had 13 of his own, both more than any MacEwan hitter, and both on highly efficient attack percentages of at least .440.
The blue and gold have a chance to climb back to .500 on the young Canada West season when they rematch with the Griffins on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. (PT). Stream the game live or on demand on Canada West TV.