The UBC Okanagan men suffered their second consecutive straight-sets loss against the Cougars on Saturday night.
Men's Volleyball (Canada West conference match)
Saturday, November 19th, 2016
Kenyon Court, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB
FINAL 1 2 3 SCORE UBC Okanagan (1-5) 21 20 19 0 Mount Royal (4-2) 25 25 25 3
CALGARY, AB -- The UBC Okanagan Heat fell in straight sets, 3-0, against the Mount Royal Cougars on Kenyon Court in Calgary on Saturday night.
Each team only had one hitter finish in double digits in the kills category, with Tyler Schmidt leading the way for the Cougars with 10, and the Heat’s Lars Bornemann leading all hitters with 11. Riley Friesen had nine kills and Alex Swiatlowski had seven, following up Schmidt and Bornemann respectively.
As a team, Mount Royal finished ahead statistically as well as on the scoreboard. The Cougars were ahead in kills (44-36), hitting percentage (.355 - .213), assists (42-33), service aces (5-1), and total blocks (13-11).
The first set was the closest in terms of score, with Mount Royal taking it 25-21. Each team finished the first with 13 kills, but the Heat’s three more attacking errors made all the difference. UBC Okanagan had the lead roughly half-way through the set, up 15-11, but seven total errors from that point on allowed the Cougars to put together multiple scoring runs, with Riley Friesen putting away three kills in the final twelve points of the set, including the 25th Cougars point.
The second saw the Cougars advantage increase by one from the first set, as they won it 25-20. The home side never allowed the Heat to string together more than two consecutive points at any point in the set, and after they took the lead at 5-4, the Cougars never gave it back. After Mount Royal scored twice in a row to go up 19-13, the teams traded points from then on, before a Heat error gave the home side the 25-20 finish.
The third set saw the final deficit grow by one again, with the Heat falling 25-19 in the final frame. Kills in the set were nearly even again, with the Cougars ending up with the 14-13 advantage in that category, but once again the Heat errors (seven, compared to MRU’s 3), were the difference. The Cougars hit .344 on 32 attempts in the third, while the Heat hit .171 on 35. The set got started for the home side with a four-point run, jumping out to a 4-1 lead. That lead was reduced to a single point three different times by the Heat, at 7-8, 18-19, and 19-20 before the Cougars scored five straight points, from two Heat errors, a service ace, and a pair of kills, to close out the match-clinching set.
The UBC Okanagan Heat (1-5) will play their next games on the road, when they travel to play the University of Regina Cougars (0-6) on Friday, November 25 and Saturday, November 26.