T-Birds steamroll Acadia, will take on Alberta in U SPORTS Final

HAMILTON, Ont. – The UBC Thunderbirds will have the chance to repeat as U SPORTS champions, earning a berth in Sunday’s national final against the Alberta Pandas.

The T-Birds completed a straight sets victory over the Acadia Axewomen (25-16, 25-8, 25-21), setting up the all-Canada West gold medal match Sunday in Hamilton.

“I thought we were able to really control things for the majority of time,” said UBC head coach Doug Reimer. “I think it showed that our players were pretty dialled in for the match. We obviously had a steep learning curve because we hadn’t seen Acadia and they did a great job in their quarter-final. I would credit both our preparation but also just execution and I thought we did a nice job in a lot of areas, blocking and defence. Especially in the second set, that was helped with our serving.”

On the heels of Friday’s four-set quarter-final win over the host McMaster Marauders, Saturday’s semifinal win was even more impressive in all aspects. The T-Birds limited Acadia to a meagre .009 attack percentage compared to UBC’s .255.

Akash Grewal led all players with 13 kills – six of them coming in the second set, just two points fewer than the Axewomen managed as a collective in the entire frame.

The opening set Saturday saw a fairly back-and-forth affair to begin with Acadia getting within a point of UBC at 10-9 only to have the ‘Birds go on a 6-1 run which included a trio of Axewomen errors.

?? WVB | The T-Birds are headed back to the @USPORTSca Final with a straight sets win over Acadia!

It will be an all @CanadaWest battle once again for the title as UBC faces Alberta Sunday at 3 p.m. PT! pic.twitter.com/fc6yKXKWCZ

— UBC Thunderbirds (@ubctbirds) March 17, 2024

Erika Vermette’s third kill of the set gave UBC a 23-16 lead and the ‘Birds closed out the opening frame on two more sideout points.

The second set was never even close once the ‘Birds staked out a 6-2 lead, limiting the Axewomen to a negative kill rate, compared to UBC’s .308.

As expected, Acadia made a push in the third, holding a 14-11 lead before three consecutive errors allowed UBC to tie it. A 6-2 T-Birds run capped by a Trinity Solecki service ace gave the defending champs a 20-16 advantage which was too much for the Axewomen to overcome.

With the Pandas advancing to Sunday’s final with a five-set win over the conference champion Manitoba Bisons, it sets up third consecutive all-Canada West national title match and the first between UBC and Alberta since the T-Birds won the banner in 2017.

“For a period of time, Alberta had our number at national finals but more recently we’ve been successful,” Reimer added. “But they’re a very young team that’s playing at a really high level. They obviously played great in their 3-0 win against Montreal and then battled hard against a very good Manitoba team.”

First serve for the 2024 U SPORTS gold medal match is set for 3:00 p.m. PT at McMaster University. The game will be streamed live on CBC Gem with the T-Birds looking for a 14^th U SPORTS banner.