The University of the Fraser Valley men's volleyball team hung around, but the College of the Rockies Avalanche capitalized on their chances to take a three-set victory on Saturday night at the Envision Financial Athletic Centre.

After jumping out to a 9-6 lead, the Avalanche managed to outlast the surging Cascades 25-23 in a back-and-forth opening set. 

The second set opened with the visitors continuing their momentum, as the Avalanche's Mark Armstrong went on a four-point service run to give them an early 6-2 lead. However, the Cascades would make a push late in the set off of a four-serve run by Shubdeep Wander to even the score at 22-22. UFV took the lead 24-23, but were unable to capitalize on set point, leaving the door open for the visitors to take it 27-25.

The third set was once again tightly contested, but with the teams even at 21-21, the visitors gained the upper hand to close the match out at 25-21. 

The Avalanche improved to 7-10, while the Cascades saw their record drop to 1-14 on the season. The two teams meet up again to complete the weekend series Sunday at 1 p.m. at the EFAC.

"We were in every game, and our compete level was good," Cascades head coach Kyle Donen said afterward. "The problem was, we were putting ourselves behind by four or five points every time, and then we had to climb back. We did really well to do that, we just fell short with a point or two at the very end. That's been a bit of a storyline for us for most of this year so far, and hopefully we can take one more step forward to be a little better tomorrow."

The Cascades' Wander, Ben Friesen and Jackson Obst tied for team-high honours with five kills apiece.

Gustavo Bertoli led the Avalanche with 12 kills, followed by Caleb Peters with nine.

Donen noted that the turning point of the match came at the end of the second set. With UFV up 25-24, Landon Uy blocked an Avalanche attack, and the ball appeared to be headed for the floor. COTR came up with an unlikely dig to extend the rally, won the point, and ultimately won the set.

"That was a big point of the game, overall," Donen noted. "We win that point, we win that set, and it's a whole different ballgame. That's the tough part – we were so close. Unfortunately we just made some errors down the stretch that made it really difficult to recover from."

- by Jordie Arthur, Cascades communications assistant