Coldstream’s Meredith Levorson helped the UBC Thunderbirds win the women’s U SPORTS Odlum Brown Swimming Championships for the third consecutive year, a feat matched by the T-Birds’ men’s squad.
With the home pool victory, the UBC women have now captured seven titles in the last eight years, while the Thunderbird men collected their fourth of the last five national championships.
UBC secured the women’s championship with 1,255.5 points, edging out the Toronto Varsity Blues (1,230.5) in an electrifying final day at the UBC Aquatic Centre. The Montreal Carabins finished third with 701 points, followed by the Calgary Dinos (521) and the Victoria Vikes (312).
Levorson, a Vernon Kokanee Swim Club and Vernon Secondary graduate, swam in four freestyle events at the national finals.
She was 25th overall in the 50-free with a time of 26.61 seconds, just missing a spot in the C final. Levorson made the B finals in the 200- and 400-free. Levorson clocked a time of 2:o1.36 in the 200 to finish eighth in the B final (16th overall) after qualifying in 14th place. In the 400 B final, Levorson touched in 4:18.12, good for fourth, 12th overall.
Levorson swam the 100-free. She placed 19th in the preliminaries to qualify for the C final, where she placed fifth in 56:51, good for 21st overall.
MEN’S VOLLEYBALL
The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack men’s volleyball team pulled off one of their biggest upsets in their history.
The Pack went into Alberta and swept the always tough Golden Bears in two straight matches in the 2019 Canada West quarterfinals.
TRU, with Vernon’s Landon Currie on the roster, beat the Bears 3-1 (25-22, 23-25, 25-21, 25-20) and 3-2 (25-19, 23-25, 14-25, 25-16, 15-8) to advance to the conference semifinals this weekend against the Trinity Western Spartans of Langley.
The Spartans eliminated Vernon’s Danny Aspenleider and the UBC Thunderbirds 2-1 (25-14, 27-25, 25-22, 25-18, 22-25, 19-25, 25-21, 12-15, 25-20, 25-16, 25-18).
Currie, a libero, had 14 digs in the nine sets against the Bears. Aspenleider appeared in all 11 set for UBC and finished with 15 kills.