Aiming for five titles in five seasons
In final year, Richey and Quiring eager to make nationals at Trinity’s expense
Back in the spring of 2007, before his program would become the current flagship of Canadian women’s university volleyball, UBC Thunderbirds head coach Doug Reimer couldn’t express enough how thrilled he was to be adding a pair of high school recruits named Kyla Richey and Rayel Quiring to his team for the upcoming 2007-08 season.
“I think that you can measure recruiting in terms of numbers,” Reimer told The Province that day. “But for our program right now, it was more about quality than quantity.”
While Reimer won’t profess to keeping a crystal ball in the trunk of his car, he knew back then that a program so very close to making its national breakthrough was perhaps just a couple of pieces shy of completion.
History, of course, speaks for itself.
UBC had failed to qualify for the CIS tournament the season before the two outside hitters arrived, but adding Richey and Quiring to a veteran core of 13 returnees not only carried the Birds to their first national title in 30 seasons, it helped them to repeat in each of their three subsequent seasons.
And all of that brings us squarely to tonight (6:15 p.m.), where CIS No. 1-ranked UBC faces crosstown rival and No. 3-ranked Trinity Western in the opening game of the Canada West Final Four conference championship tournament at War Memorial Gymnasium.
As usual, the stakes are high, with a direct berth to the national tournament and a spot in Saturday’s championship final on the line for the winner.
Winnipeg, tied at No. 3 with TWU, faces No. 5 Alberta in the second game (8 p.m.), the winner also gaining a berth to nationals.
Today’s two losers play Saturday (5 p.m.) for the conference’s third and final berth to the nationals (March 2-4 in Hamilton, Ont.), while the two winners duel for the top seed in the gold-medal match (7 p.m.).
“These games are huge, especially Friday,” said Richey, a Roberts Creek native, and the Canada West’s freshly minted Player of the Year.
“We have such a rivalry with Trinity. For us, it’s do or die because the bronze-medal game is such a tough one to play.”
In the buildup to this weekend, the pair of fifth-year seniors have become the easy storyline, each attempting to get their team back to nationals and close out their UBC careers with five CIS titles in five seasons. Ask them about the past four, however, and they’ll tell you that not one of them has come easily.
“The biggest thing I have learned is that every year is different,” said Langley’s Quiring, named the Canada West’s nominee for the CIS Therese Quigley Award, recognizing excellence in volleyball, academics and community involvement.
“Everyone thinks there is this formula for success, and that we do the same thing every year, and that is how we win.
“But that’s not what happens. We’ve won nationals being 7-5 at Christmas, and we’ve won nationals being 25-0 at the end of the season. We have had to overcome something different every year.
“For us, it’s knowing that our formula for success is actually within ourselves, the culture we have developed, the friendships we have made, and the family that we have created here with the 18 girls that we have.”
Last week, for example, Richey had to undergo dental surgery to fix a sore tooth, one which she told the dentist she would rather leave untreated until the season was over.
“He told me that I wouldn’t have been able to survive the pain, so he yanked it out,” said Richey, who still made it to practice on Monday and is raring to go tonight.
“Ray and I are the seniors, and when you come into your fifth year there are so many other responsibilities. We have to be the ones directing traffic and making sure everything is all right.”
Another example of how no season is the same?
When senior middle blocker Jessica von Schilling was lost to an ACL tear, Reimer redrew huge portions of the team’s schematics, playing setter Brina Derksen-bergen in an unconventional dual role.
For Quiring, it’s just another example of her teammates’ purposeful action.
“Doug is working a system different than anyone in Canada has seen,” she said. “That is completely unique, and for Brina to come in and deal with it the way she has, it’s been incredible. So now we can flip back and forth between our new system and our old system. And for us to do that in a game so quickly is a real testament to the strength and adaptability of the team.”
It’s been five seasons of lessons well learned for the pair, each of whom is set to begin investigating professional opportunities in Europe at the end of the season.
“It’s surreal that it’s all coming to an end soon,” said Richey.
Added Quiring: “Doug has made me a better leader in every sense of the word. He quoted some words to me in my first year that I have always remembered. He said to ‘become comfortable being uncomfortable.’”
It seems the perfect way to take on new challenges and stay hungry.