The University of the Fraser Valley women's volleyball team completed the first weekend sweep of its Canada West tenure, breaking out the brooms with a three-set win over the Thompson Rivers WolfPack in Kamloops on Saturday.
The Cascades led nearly every set wire-to-wire, prevailing by scores of 25-17, 25-18, 25-17 and out-hitting the WolfPack by a margin of .303 to .062.Â
UFV hadÂ
required five sets to dispense of host TRU in Friday's opener, and in the aftermath, head coach
Janelle Rozema noted that her squad could have been tidier in many areas.
There was no such equivocating on Saturday, as a physical UFV team took advantage of a young WolfPack squad missing some key players due to COVID-19 protocols to rack up 10 blocks to TRU's 1.
"I had the exact opposite emotions, last night to today," Rozema said with a chuckle afterward. "I honestly couldn't ask for more. It was a really clean volleyball game. No opponent, in the game of volleyball, are you going to keep at zero with the nature of rally point. But I felt we played a really solid volleyball match. There's not a skill I can pick on today that I felt was super suspect."
The Cascades scored the first four points of the night, but the WolfPack kept pace from there until the technical timeout at 16-12. UFV exploded down the stretch, though, and an ace from
Cailin Bitter finished off a set that saw
Amanda Matsui record eight kills for the 25-17 victory.
The second set followed much the same script. A 16-12 UFV advantage at the technical was blown wide open with an 8-4 Cascades run to make it 24-16. TRU's Kate Lamothe had three kills in the set, but it was a case of too little too late as UFV took the second frame 25-18.
Thompson Rivers grabbed their first lead of the night early in the third set but the Cascades immediately responded with a 7-0 run keyed by a pair of aces from
Mo Likness to take a 7-2 edge. The 'Pack fought hard down the stretch and cut the lead to four at 14-10, but Fraser Valley proved to be too much on the night and ran away with the third 25-17.
Matsui paced the Cascades once again, racking up 21 kills on 31 attacks to finish the night with a hitting percentage of .581. Bitter did an excellent job distributing the ball, recording 31 assists, and
Sadie Wilson and
Kristen McBride helped balance out the Cascades' attack with five kills apiece. Wilson added a team-best 10 digs.
For the second night in a row Brooklyn Olfert led the WolfPack with nine kills. Lamothe had a career-high six kills, and Katie Ludvig had 10 digs for TRU.
"Our serving was really consistent, really tough, and our serve defence game was really strong, too," Rozema noted. "That was the biggest change today.
"It was also nice to have a diverse offence today. Obviously Amanda scored a lot for us, but she wasn't the only one contributing on the scoreboard. Kristen and Sadie and Mo were really good."
Following a bye week, the Cascades volleyball teams host their long-awaited Canada West home openers, Feb. 4-5 vs. TRU.
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