Volleyball team makes WolfPack athletics history with highest national ranking, earns first-ever sweep of UBC

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“I can’t take credit from 2005 because I only got here in 2014, but obviously they’re a perennial powerhouse,” WolfPack head coach Chad Grimm said of the T-Birds, who are 14-time national champions.

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“We have five girls who are new out of high school. They don’t know the journey that even some of the older girls were on five years ago. They definitely don’t remember what Iuliia [Pakhomenko] walked into in 2014 when I was new and she was new, and the team had just gone through two winless season. For us that have been around, it feels a little bit different.”

The WolfPack dropped only one set in two matches last weekend in War Memorial Gym, a venue in which TRU has only three wins in 21 years.

“It was special,” said WolfPack outside hitter Keira Gent, who is fifth in the conference in kills, with 59 in six matches.

“We’ve been working so hard for it. We’ve gone in that gym and not done well in the past. We went in there with a different mentality. It felt really awesome to get that result in their home gym.”

The T-Birds – who are 38-8 against the Pack in all-time regular season conference play and 7-0 in the playoffs – dove to fifth from second in national rankings.

“In the past, they’ve been really strong,” said WolfPack libero Olivia Andulajevic, who is third in digs in Canada West, with 75 in six matches.

“Not that they’re not strong now, but I think we’ve come a really long way mentally, physically and skillfully. We knew we had a job to do and we got it done.”

The WolfPack, who sit alone atop Canada West standings, will twice play host to the MacEwan Griffins (2-4) of Edmonton this weekend.

Match times are slated for 7:15 p.m. on Friday (Nov. 13) and 4:45 p.m. on Saturday at the TCC.

“Any time you walk into a game expecting to walk over an opponent, you’re going to be in for a surprise,” Grimm said. “Any team in our league can beat you on any night. Our team knows that.”