VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds opened their 2015-16 Canada West women's volleyball campaign with a 3-0 home victory over the visiting Manitoba Bisons Saturday night at War Memorial Gymnasium in Vancouver.
The set scores were: 25-14, 25-19 and 25-14 in favour of the hosts.
Alissa Coulter (Calgary) led UBC with nine kills and had an excellent game, contributing offensively and defensively. The fifth-year senior also led the 'Birds with eight digs, as did Samantha Patko (Vancouver). Alessandra Gentile (Port Moody, B.C.) had 28 assists for UBC.
Manitoba got five kills each from Jordana Milne, Angelica Kilberg and Sarah Klassen. Tori Studler had seven digs for the Bisons while Sydney Booker recorded 14 assists on the day.
"I was very pleased to see how well our offence was running today," said UBC head coach Doug Reimer. "Alessandra ran the offence very well with good balance and saved a lot of tough balls and turned them into good sets. While there's lots to work on of course this was a good first match after the opening weekend bye."
The Thunderbirds had an efficient attack, recording a hitting percentage of .425 for the match.
The 'Birds and the Bisons traded points early in the opening set, and a kill from Manitoba's Milne cut UBC's lead to 9-7. But the T-Birds then won eight of the next 10 points to open up a wide gap, which they continued to build on until the set's conclusion at 25-14.
Kilberg was one of the highlights for Manitoba in the opening set, as she recorded four kills on four attacks and added an assist.
With help from two Danielle Brisebois (Bolton, Ont.) service aces, UBC jumped out to an early 4-1 advantage but Manitoba stemmed the momentum of the hosts to close to 10-9 on a Klassen kill. Another Brisebois ace – she finished the game with four – brought the teams into the technical timeout at 16-11 in favour of the Thunderbirds. The two sides essentially traded points the rest of the way. Bison Lexi Janovcik had a couple of aces at the end of the set, but her run was ended on a Manitoba attack error that gave UBC a 25-19 win.
The third set was tied just once, at 1-1, before UBC was able to create separation. Gentile had a couple of aces early for the home team. The Thunderbirds forced the Bisons to call a timeout at 11-5. Coulter knocked down a kill to make it 13-8 and followed up with a service ace. Siobhan Finan for UBC then added three kills in five points to push the score to 17-10. The visitors couldn't generate much momentum despite a couple of late kills from Milne.
With the loss, Manitoba fell to 0-3.
The rematch takes place on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT.
IMAGE CREDIT: Rich Lam/UBC Thunderbirds