The Douglas Royals rallied to edge the University of the Fraser Valley women's volleyball team in five sets on Friday evening at the Envision Financial Athletic Centre.

The Royals took the match by scores of 25-27, 25-19, 17-25, 25-23, and 15-10.

The Cascades (6-5) and Royals (5-5) renew hostilities on Saturday at Douglas's New Westminster campus to wrap up the home-and-home series (5 p.m., pacwestbc.tv).

"We put ourselves in a position to win against a really good team," UFV head coach Janelle Rozema said afterward. "Obviously the outcome at the end of the game was not what we wanted, but I was really impressed with the way we battled out there.

"We made some key mistakes after 20 (points) in the sets previous (to the fifth) – I think we actually could have finished that game a little sooner had we not made those mistakes. It's going to be a little bit of learning about tightening things up when the score is after 20 and making sure we get the job done."

In the first set, the two teams both got efficient offence from their middles – Lauren Poirier racked up four kills for the Cascades, and Olivia Cesaretti did the same for the Royals. However, with the score 26-25 UFV, Porier secured a block on Cesaretti to close it out 27-25 for the hosts.

UFV held a 9-6 lead in the second, but Douglas fought back – an ace by Jacey Neid and kills by Cesaretti and Grace Warkentin gave them a 10-9 advantage, and they pulled away from there to take it 25-19.

Blocks on back-to back points by UFV's Sedona Arabsky and Poirer staked UFV to a 7-5 lead in the third, and the Cascades extended the margin to 13-6 after an Amanda Matsui service run. They would wrap up the set 25-17 thanks to a late Lexi Edwards service run, aided by blocking from Arabsky and Chelsea Kidd, and Kristen McBride had the clinching kill.

The teams found themselves even at 21-21 in the fourth, but the Royals got a block from Emma Schill and successive kills from Jacey Neid to take it 25-23 and extend the match.

With the score 6-5 for Douglas in the fifth, Neid secured a kill and an ace to give her team an 8-5 advantage. The Royals carried that momentum, closing it out 15-10 with a Cesaretti kill.

Matsui posted a team-high 12 kills for the Cascades, while McBride, Kidd and Arabsky had eight apiece.

A trio of Royals notched double-digit kills: Cesaretti and Schill had 13 apiece, and Warkentin had 12.