Scott Stewart - TWU Athletics 

LANGLEY, British Columbia – Fifth year senior Katelyn Devaney (Port Coquitlam, B.C.) led the Spartans with nine blocks as she became the all time Canada West leader in career blocks with 513 in TWU's five set loss to the UBC Thunderbirds. The No. 4 ranked Thunderbirds took the exciting five set match 25-22, 22-25, 25-22, 17-25 and 15-9 in front of over 1400 fans Friday night at the Langley Events Centre in Langley, B.C.

Hillary Howe with 20 kills and eight digs, Micaylee Pucilowski (Kelowna, B.C.) with 11 kills and seven digs, and Devaney, and Avery Heppell (Langley, B.C.) with seven kills each led the Spartan attack. While Kiera Van Ryk with 16 kills and five service aces, Gabrielle Attieh with 12 kills, and Olivia Furlam with 11 kills and a game high 27 digs led the Thunderbirds.

Brie O'Reilly (Langley, B.C.) finished with 38 set assists for TWU, while Alessandra Gentile finished with 47 assists for UBC.

The evenings contest was evenly fought as the teams split the first three sets by identical 25-22 scores, with the Thunderbirds having the one set edge. The Spartans drew even with their strongest set of the night taking the fourth 25-17.

In the fifth set UBC held a two-point advantage, 8-6, at the change over. The two teams exchanged points, then with the Thunderbirds us 9-8, UBC went on a 6-1 run to take the fifth set 15-9 and the match 3-2.

The Spartans finished the evening hitting .180 (52-21-172), while the Thunderbirds finished at .131 (56-33-176). UBC held the edge in serving with 14 aces and seven errors, while TWU had 10 aces with 12 errors. The Spartans were dominant at the net finishing with an impressive 17 blocks to the Thunderbirds nine.

QUOTABLE

Trinity Western head coach Ryan Hofer

On tonight's match

"I was very pleased with our competiveness that we came out and played with. It was a hard fought battle. We knew that it was going to be great volleyball. It was really good environment and it was great to come out and play in front of this crowd and our fans."

On tomorrow's rematch at UBC

"We played hard with them and we allowed a few errors to get in our way. Tomorrow we have to make sure at those opportune times that we control the ball and look for the kills when we have the opportunity."

On Katelyn Devaney setting the CW career blocking record.

"Katie has worked really hard. She is a fantastic blocker and has put together an exceptional career. And it was nice to see her set the record at home in front of a great crowd."

NOTABLE

• Katelyn Devaney finished the night with nine blocks. Giving her a total of 126 in the season. Her career best is 127, which is third best in Canada West history. Devaney currently holds three of the top seven single season records for blocks in a season.
• TWU's Alicia Perrin, 2010-2015, held the TWU and Canada West record with 512 blocks in a season.
• Micaylee Pucilowski had a career best 11 kills on a career high 40 attempts.

UP NEXT

The two teams will match up again tomorrow night in Vancouver. Match time at UBC's War Memorial gym is set for 5 p.m. The match can be seen live on Canadawest.TV.

-TW-