Abbotsford, BC - Gabrielle Attieh knocked down a game-high 19 kills, but it wasn't enough on the day as the UFV Cascades fell 3-1 (25-21, 16-25, 20-25, 24-26) to the Trinity Western Spartans on Friday night at the UFV Athletic Centre.

With the win the Spartans improve to 3-0 on the year, while UFV drops to 0-3.

The Cascades got off to a hot start in the first set. With the score level at 16, three kills from Lauren Attieh and a pair of blocks from Alicja Hardy-Francis and Cailin Bitter, gave UFV a 21-16 lead, before going on to finish it off 25-21.

The Spartans clawed back in the second, jumping out to a 19-13 advantage, and from there three kills each from TWU's Savannah Purdy and Kaylee Plouffe helped them take the set 25-16.

UFV took a 5-0 lead in the fourth, but Trinity Western battle back eventually evening the score at 14. The teams traded points, in the middle portion of the set, but four kills from Purdy at the end of the set helped them take five of the last six points and a 25-20 set win.

The Cascades once again manufactured a lead in the fourth, as Lauren and Gabrielle Attieh combined for 14 kills in the set boosting their team to leads of 17-10, and 24-19, but three kills from both Ansah Odoom and Maryn Boldon allowed them to take the last seven points of the match to close it out 26-24.

"There was a lot of good things that we saw in our team today," noted Cascades outside hitter Gabrielle Attieh postgame. "We have a lot to work on moving forward, but the glimmers of what we saw going on was amazing."

Gabrielle and Lauren Attieh paced the Cascades offensively, posting 19 and 16 kills respectively, while libero Emily Matsui notched a team-high 22 digs on the night.

Odoom led the Spartans with 17 kills on the night, while Purdy added 16. Emma Gamache picked up 23 digs for her side. 

The two teams face each other once again on Saturday at 7pm at the UFV Athletic Centre. The match will also be streamed live on canadawest.tv for those unable to be in attendance.

"Going in to tomorrow we can expect a lot of adjustments on their side, so we need to continue to be creative and aggressive with our attacking. We could also improve on our defence tonight — being more agile getting set in our defensive positions — that will put more pressure on their attacking."