Vancouver, BC - The UFV Cascades dropped a tightly contested four-set decision to the UBC Thunderbirds to open the 2022-2023 Canada West season on Friday night. Set scores were 25-21, 28-26, 22-25, and 27-25 in favour of the Thunderbirds.
Both teams traded blows throughout the first set, but with the score 22-21 for UBC a trio of kills from Brynn Pasin, Elise Petit, and Erika Vermette allowed them to close it out 25-21.
The Cascades jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the second set, before extending that advantage to 15-6. However, UBC would claw their way back, and although UFV held a 24-23 advantage in the late part of the set, UBC would collect six of the final eight points to snatch it 28-26.
UFV picked up their lone set win in the third, as they came back from a 21-19 deficit to pick up six of the last seven points and finish it 25-22. Setter
Cailin Bitter picked up a pair of kills, and Natalie Lemoine-sells recorded an ace in that final stretch.
The fourth was once again tight, and with the score level at 24, a pair of kills from Petit and a kill from Lucy Borowski helped seal it 27-25 for the Thunderbirds.
"We played at a level that Cascades volleyball hasn't been at yet, so I think it looks really hopeful for the future, but I think there were also some points where we made some errors that we could have controlled" remarked UFV head coach
Janelle Rozema.
Lauren Attieh notched a game-high 17 kills for the Cascades, while
Mo Likness set a career-high with 10 blocks,
Emily Matsui matched a career-high with 26 digs, and Bitter added 32 assists.
"Cailin [Bitter] did a great job of using all of the weapons we have, and Emily [Matsui] did a great job of passing and defending and putting us in a position to make sure all of our attackers were successful tonight" Rozema noted.
Petit paced the Thunderbirds with 16 kills, while Kacey Jost picked up 20 digs, and Issy Robertson added 25 assists.
The two teams play again at 5pm on Saturday in Vancouver. Catch all the action live on canadawest.tv.Â
