The University of the Fraser Valley women's volleyball team earned a three-set victory over the MacEwan Griffins on Friday evening to open a preseason tournament in Calgary.

The Cascades had faced the Griffins one week ago at a similar event in Kamloops, B.C., and needed five sets to dispatch the Edmonton squad. Thus, Friday's result – tidier as it was, with set scores of 25-13, 25-20 and 26-24 – represented progress for UFV as they build toward their Canada West regular-season debut (Nov. 5-6 at UBC Okanagan).

"I definitely think we learned how to close out a match," Cascades head coach Janelle Rozema said afterward. "All volleyball teams have to go through that learning process. That's a big step forward for us, and it shows our ability to control matches.

"We identified that a team is going to start playing better against us as they start getting to know us more. It becomes harder to score points, but we really dug deep and started earning those hard points."

Pleasing for Rozema was the fact that every Cascades player saw the floor on Friday. Of note, rookie Sydney Wright, normally a right side, lined up at a new position at middle and contributed to the victory.

"It was a true team effort," Rozema noted.

The Cascades are back in action on Saturday, facing the host Calgary Dinos at 7 p.m. Mountain time.