Fraser Valley – WVB: Cascades punch ticket to program’s first Canada West Semifinal
The meteoric rise of the UFV women’s volleyball program reached another milestone Saturday in Abbotsford, B.C.
The No. 3 seed Cascades beat the sixth-seeded MacEwan Griffins 3-1 (25-20, 26-24, 13-25 and 25-21) Saturday at the UFV Athletic Centre to sweep their Canada West quarter-final series in two matches. The Cascades won Game 1 Friday in four sets.
With the result, UFV – in just its third season as a Canada West member – earned a berth to the conference semifinal round for the first time.
The Cascades will travel to Winnipeg for a semifinal series next weekend against the No. 2-seeded Manitoba Bisons. UFV swept the regular-season series between the squads, winning 3-1 and 3-0 at home in late October.
WBB | Ahlstrom, Huskies on target in semifinal win over Cascades
Carly Ahlstrom and the Saskatchewan Huskies were so hot from downtown in Saturday afternoon’s Canada West semifinal clash with the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades, you half-expected the ball to burst into flames as in the classic 1990s video game NBA Jam.
The Huskies’ obscenely hot shooting from the perimeter in the first quarter transformed the complexion of the game. They drained seven three-pointers in the first six minutes of play, five of them coming off Ahlstrom’s fingertips, racing out to a huge early lead that proved insurmountable on their way to an 84-50 win at the UFV Athletic Centre.
Saskatchewan, the No. 1 seed in the CW playoff draw and the No. 2 team in the U SPORTS national rankings, emphatically punched its ticket to the national championship tournament in Edmonton in two weeks’ time. They face the Alberta Pandas on Sunday (3 p.m., CanadaWest.tv) to decide the conference title.
The host Cascades, who had been seeking their first trip to the CW final since 2014, will instead battle the UVic Vikes for bronze (1 p.m., CanadaWest.tv), and the stakes could hardly be higher – the winner will earn an automatic national championship berth.
