Abbotsford, BC – The UFV Cascades men's basketball team allowed a 16-4 run early in the first, and struggled to recover from the early hole as they fell to the University of Alberta Golden Bears 89-72 on Friday night.

As it happened: 
After the Cascades cored first, the Golden Bears came back to put up a 16-4 run in the first, and take control of the game early on. Alberta continued to put on the pressure, and an Isaac Simon triple beat the buzzer to give the visitors a 15-point lead at the half.

A Fahad Yusef jumper made the lead 22 for Alberta in the third, before UFV's Dylan Kinley and Hans Befus hit a pair of shots to cut the deficit back down to 16. A pair of Arpan Singh triples in the fourth threatened to get the Cascades back into it, but Adam Paige answered for Alberta with five points of his own to help seal the victory.

Top performers: 
Dylan Kinley had a team-high 14 points and eight rebounds for the Cascades, while Befus added 14 of his own off the bench, and Dario Lopez chipped in 13.

Isaac Simon finished with 22 points for the Golden Bears, while Adam Paige had a strong all-around game with 20 points, four assists, and seven boards. 

Quotable:
Cascades head coach Joe Enevoldson

"There are a few things we definitely have to clean up, including our ball screen coverage which I thought was abysmal early. I just felt they got to wherever they wanted to on the floor especially in the first half."

"We tightened it up and battled hard in the second half, and we had a level of compete to us that was quite high, but you can't be down 15 at the half."

Up next:
The Cascades host the Golden Bears in the rematch on Saturday at the UFV Athletic Centre. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. and UFV Students attend for free with a valid student ID. Saturday is also the Cascades' annual Hall of Fame night where UFV will honour a pair of athletes as their 2024 inductees. Tickets can be purchased online at gocascades.ca/tickets, and the game can be seen live on canadawest.tv.