With a 3-2 (25-21, 20-25, 17-25, 35-33, 15-9) win over the visiting No. 5 ranked UBC Thunderbirds Friday night at the PAC in Saskatoon, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies extended its win streak to seven matches.

Saskatchewan improves to 8-5 with the win and hasn't lost since November 1. UBC drops to 9-6.

The Huskies opened the match with a strong 25-21 win in the opening set, before UBC turned the tables winning handedly in the second and third sets 25-20 and 25-17. Saskatchewan forced a fifth set after a 35-33 point win in a back-and-forth fourth set. 

A Quentin Schmidt and Alex Russell block put UBC at match point 25-24 in the fourth set. But an Irvan Brar service error gave Saskatchewan life again. The teams would set at set point nine more times – four for UBC and five for Saskatchewan – before the Huskies took the set 35-33 to force a fifth set.

With the momentum from the extra point win in the fourth set, the Huskies jumped to an 8-1 lead to start the deciding game. After Saskatchewan extended the lead to 10-2, the T-Birds strung together four straight points before the Huskies were returned the ball on a UBC error. A Robert Graham kill that snuck between the UBC blockers and the net put Saskatchewan at match point at 14-8. Alex Harvalias serve sailed long to extend UBC's life. But a Brar serve also sailed long on the next play to give the Huskies the 15-9 win.

Brar led the T-Birds in the loss recording 20 kills, while Mac McNicol added another 19. Ian Perry tallied 15 digs in the match.

Paul Thomson led the Huskies to the win with 21 kills, two block set and two block assists, while Jordan Nowakowski added 19 kills and a team-high 12 digs.  

The two teams will meet again Saturday night at the PAC in the final matches of the first half of the Canada West season. First serve is scheduled for 8 p.m. and can be viewed on canadawest.tv