February 18 - For the first time in 18 years the UBC men’s volleyball team is bound for the CIS championship, and they had to go through a national tournament mainstay to get there.

In front of a boisterous home crowd, the Thunderbirds won a thrilling third and deciding Canada West quarterfinal match 3-1 over the Manitoba Bisons Sunday at War Memorial Gym, 19-25, 25-23, 25-20 and 31-29.

The victory advances UBC to the Canada West Final Four in Edmonton next weekend, and also qualified them for the March 2-4 CIS championship at McMaster University in Hamilton. Host Alberta, Trinity Western and Winnipeg are the other Canada West teams through to the next round.

Manitoba, a veteran-laden squad that had won back-to-back CIS bronze medals, misses out on a nationals berth for just the second time in 27 years and first since 1997.

“No words can express it right now,” said UBC head coach Richard Schick, whose team had been eliminated by the Bisons in the opening round the last three seasons. “People remind you that you haven’t been [to nationals] in so long and that’s such a weight to carry. But this group of guys worked so hard all year long and that weight is gone now. We’ve gotten so many words of encouragement in the last few days and this is for all those players who went through the program since I’ve been here and under Dale Ohman. It’s just an awesome feeling.”

One of the best blocking teams in the nation all season long, the T-Birds weren’t able to counter Manitoba’s varied offence with any presence at the net for most of the match, but fourth-year right side Andrew Bonner came up with two huge stuffs late in the fourth set, including the match-winning block on Josh Klassen. T-Birds’ inspirational leader also racked up 26 kills – his second-highest career total – the final one making it 30-29 to set up match point.

“We decided that today, at the end of it, win or lose, we weren’t going to have anything left in the tank, and I am spent right now,” said Bonner. “You look around, these guys are absolutely spent. We played with heart today and that’s what we needed to do. It was just unbelievable to be a part of.”

Manitoba outblocked UBC 6-1 in the opening set and the home side aided the Bisons cause with six service errors as the visitors jump out to a 1-0 lead, 25-19.

The Bison maintained control of the match early in the second frame, jumping ahead 8-5 on a Jeff Zylstra block before UBC came alive out of the timeout. The T-Birds rattled off a 9-3 run to take a 14-11 edge, then closed out the set with clutch play after 20. Bonner picked up kills to make it 23-21 and 24-22, then Kyle Duperron capped the set on a thunderous hit.

Back-to-back Christoph Eichbaum kills gave UBC their biggest lead of the third set at 17-12 and, after Manitoba pulled to within two points with a quick run, the T-Birds won two of night’s longest rallies out of a timeout to pull ahead 19-15 and put the set out of reach.

As they did in the second set, the T-Birds fought back from an early deficit in the fourth, pulling even at 13-all after Manitoba had raced out to an 8-4 lead. Neither team led by more than two points for the remainder of the marathon set that featured four set points for the Bisons. A stoic Eichbaum negated three of their four set points with clutch kills, and he was also in on the block that wiped away the other. UBC won the series on their third match point.

“A lot of credit to Manitoba,” said Schick, “they’re an experienced team and they didn’t waver at all. They battled right with us but today is the T-Birds’ day for sure.”

Klassen, one of six Manitoba seniors, paced the visitors with 18 kills and hit .536, while Toon van Lankvelt chipped in 13 kills.

Eichbaum added 18 for UBC, while Matt LeBourdais contributed 11 from the middle to go with a team-high nine digs and four blocks.

Complete statistics...