Fraser Valley – Women‘s Volleyball: Cascades fall in four sets to visiting Spartans
Gabrielle and Lauren Attieh knocked down a game-high 19 kills, but it wasn’t enough on the day as the UFV Cascades fell 3-1 (25-21, 16-25, 20-25, 24-26) to the Trinity Western Spartans on Friday night at the UFV Athletic Centre.
With the win the Spartans improve to 3-0 on the year, while UFV drops to 0-3.
The Cascades got off to a hot start in the first set. With the score level at 16, three kills from Lauren Attieh and a pair of blocks from Alicja Hardy-Francis and Cailin Bitter, gave UFV a 21-16 lead, before going on to finish it off 25-21.
The Spartans clawed back in the second, jumping out to a 19-13 advantage, and from there three kills each from TWU’s Savannah Purdy and Kaylee Plouffe helped them take the set 25-16.
UFV took a 5-0 lead in the fourth, but Trinity Western battle back eventually evening the score at 14. The teams traded points, in the middle portion of the set, but four kills from Purdy at the end of the set helped them take five of the last six points and a 25-20 set win.
The Cascades once again manufactured a lead in the fourth, as Lauren and Gabrielle Attieh combined for 14 kills in the set boosting their team to leads of 17-10, and 24-19, but three kills from both Ansah Odoom and Maryn Boldon allowed them to take the last seven points of the match to close it out 26-24.
“There was a lot of good things that we saw in our team today,” noted Cascades outside hitter Gabrielle Attieh postgame. “We have a lot to work on moving forward, but the glimmers of what we saw going on was amazing.”
Gabrielle and Lauren Attieh paced the Cascades offensively, posting 19 and 16 kills respectively, while libero Emily Matsui notched a team-high 22 digs on the night.
Odoom led the Spartans with 17 kills on the night, while Purdy added 16. Emma Gamache picked up 23 digs for her side.
The two teams face each other once again on Saturday at 7pm at the UFV Athletic Centre. The match will also be streamed live on canadawest.tv for those unable to be in attendance.
“Going in to tomorrow we can expect a lot of adjustments on their side, so we need to continue to be creative and aggressive with our attacking. We could also improve on our defence tonight — being more agile getting set in our defensive positions — that will put more pressure on their attacking.”
Men’s Volleyball: Cascades push No. 2 ranked Spartans to five, but unable to complete the upset
Nimo Benne knocked down 19 kills as the UFV Cascades pushed the U SPORTS no. 2-ranked Trinity Western Spartans to a fifth set but were unable to complete the upset falling by set scores of 29-27, 21-25, 16-25, 25-22, and 7-15.
“Tonight was a good battle between two really good teams,” noted UFV head coach Nathan Bennett after the match.
“The maturity level of the other side became a little bit more prominent in the match, but I thought we put on a good show for an awesome fan base there tonight”.
The teams went blow for blow in the first set, but it was the Cascades that came out on top. With the score 24-23 UFV got a kill from Benne, and a block from Caleb Kastelein to extend the set and after a TWU service error, Benne drilled home his third ace of the frame to take it 29-27.
Both teams battled hard in the second set trading points, but with the score 22-21 in favour of the Spartans, they would notch the final three points of the set to win it 25-21.
Trinity Western kept rolling in the third, leaping out to a 15-5 lead. They made no mistake carrying that lead to a 25-16 set win.
A strong response from the Cascades in the fourth helped them edge out a 22-20 lead on the back of a pair of Ryan Hampe kills, and two more Benne kills helped them close it out 25-22 to force a fifth set.
The Spartans leapt out to a 5-0 lead in the fifth, and that advantage proved too much to overcome as Trinity Western’s Jesse Elser knocked down the final kill to finish out the match 15-7.
Benne led the Cascades with 19 kills and five aces in the match, while Jonas Van Huizen posted 41 assists and three aces of his own.
Brodie Hofer paced the Spartans with 22 kills on the night, while Henry Rempel added 20 of his own, and Mathias Elser had 54 set assists.
“It was just the small details that made the difference at the end,” noted UFV outside hitter Eduardo Ferreira, “so hopefully we’ll be able to correct those for tomorrow’s game”.
The two teams renew acquaintances again on Saturday at 5pm at the UFV Athletic Centre. The match is also available to be watched live on canadawest.tv.
