LANGLEY, British Columbia – Trinity Western's Ryan Sclater (Port Coquitlam, B.C.) had a match-high 14 kills to lead the Spartans to a 3-0 (25-23, 25-16, 25-20) win over UBC Okanagan Saturday at the Langley Events Centre.

The win for the No. 9-ranked Spartans (11-9) completed a weekend sweep of the Heat and gave TWU back-to-back victories for the first time since a four-game winning streak in mid-November. The loss drops UBCO to 3-17 on the season.

After Sclater, it was Blake Scheerhoorn (Belleville, Ont.) with 10 kills and four blocks while both Aaron Boettcher (Surrey, B.C.) and Leigh Goossen (Kelowna, B.C.) had four blocks each. Setter Adam Schriemer (Winnipeg) had 32 assists in his second start of the season.

UBCO's Lars Bornemann had seven kills and 10 digs to lead the Heat while Jim Bell added six kills and three blocks.

As a team, TWU hit .256 and had 11 blocks. The Heat hit .086 and had 5.5 blocks.

"The first 55 points we played in that match were really good," said Spartans coach Ben Josephson. "After that, it was really frustrating. But the good part about tonight is that when the things that have plagued us all year showed up, we were able to solve the issue and still win the set. It didn't cost us big time. I'm proud of them for fixing the problem in the set. What I don't like seeing is that those issues did show themselves. We lost some focus and we lost our aggressive edge and that's what I don't like seeing. I like that they figured out how to not let it cost us. Even in that, our block defense held up, which it usually didn't earlier in the year. Our serving and offense and our passing broke down.

"In the end we did what we had to do and we got out of here with two wins in six sets and now we will get ready for another big weekend."

A close first set saw the Spartans pull away shortly after the technical timeout, going ahead 20-17 following a Scheerhoorn kill. The Heat evened the set 23-23 after a Bell kill, but a Scheerhoorn kill set up set point and Sclater finished it with his eighth kill of the set.

In the second set, the Spartans hit .462 and only committed one attack error as they rolled to a 25-16 win. Sclater added another five kills to his total as they Spartans opened an early 8-4 lead and pulled away late. A kill from Goosen ended the set with TWU up by nine.

The Spartans scored the first five points of the third set and looked on route to a convincing win. However, the Heat battled back and trailed by just one point, 16-15, at the technical timeout. But just as it seemed UBCO might extend the match, the Spartans scored the first two points out of the break and took the lead for good. The Spartans went up 22-17 and then held on down the stretch for the win.

The Spartans return to the court Feb. 12-13 when they travel to play Thompson Rivers. The Heat are also back in action next weekend as they are in Edmonton to take on MacEwan.

Game Notes: TWU had 37 digs to UBCO's 29…UBCO is now 0-10 all-time in regular season action against TWU…Saturday was Schriemer's second start of the season.

-TW-