The Camosun Chargers staged a comeback at the UFV Cascades' expense, earning a five-set win in PACWEST women's volleyball action in Victoria on Friday evening.

The CCAA No. 7-ranked Chargers twice erased one-set deficits, before finishing off the No. 13 Cascades behind some tough serving in the fifth (17-25, 25-16, 21-25, 25-18, 15-8). Camosun (13-5) tightened its grip on second place in the PACWEST, while the Cascades (8-10) slipped to fifth.

The two teams wrap up the weekend series on Saturday afternoon (1 p.m., pacwestbc.tv).

"I think we're still learning a lot of lessons about how to close out games and being a tough competitor who doesn't let a team back in the match," UFV head coach Janelle Rozema noted. "We gave up some easy points where it made them feel like they could come back into the match, and that's our responsibility. I'm 100 per cent confident that the outcome of tonight's match was within our control. We're walking away tonight with a lesson learned – just because you start the match strong, doesn't mean it's going to be easy. We had some great examples of high-level volleyball, but we have to be able to do that consistently."

In the first set, back-to-back aces from Sedona Arabsky helped turn the momentum the Cascades' way, and they wrapped up a tidy 25-17 win. But in the second, Camosun's Sydney Svicenec reeled off a seven-point service run in the early stages, and the Chargers cruised from there to square the match.

The third set was closely contested, but the Cascades gained some separation in the middle stages. Later on, a clutch kill from Chelsea Kidd gave the visitors a 24-21 lead, and a Camosun hitting error on the next point wrapped up the set for UFV.

Midway through the fourth, Camosun's Hannah May got a kill to snap a 14-14 tie, and she served for the next two points as the hosts gained a three-point cushion. Back-to-back aces from Julia Kretzschmar helped the Chargers pull away and force a fifth set.

In the fifth, Svicenec was dominant from the service line, serving for six straight points highlighted by two aces as Camosun raced out to a 10-1 lead. The Cascades got it back to 12-6, but that was as close as they'd come.

"When you go to the fifth set, it's anyone's game at that point," Rozema said. "We needed to end it earlier, and that's on us.

"They were serving us tough from the beginning of the match. And at the beginning, we contained it really well, but it wore us down as the match went on. They put us in a tough position on serve receive."

Amanda Matsui had a big game for UFV with 13 kills and 20 digs, and Alysha Cooper notched eight kills. A bright spot for the Cascades was rookie setter Haley Poier, who came off the bench for her first game action as a Cascade and excelled, racking up 21 assists.

"She was excellent," Rozema enthused. "She got a couple blocks for us at key moments, had some tough serves, and ran a really clean, diverse offence."

Svicenec sparked the Chargers with 11 kills and five aces, and May finished with 10 kills.