Massive service pressure from
Alicja Hardy-Francis and the UFV Cascades in the second set helped to power the team to a 3-0 (26-24, 25-6, 25-14) win over the University of Regina Cougars on Friday in Regina.
The win moves the Cascades record to 13-3, while the Cougars fall to 4-13 on the season.
How it happened:
The teams traded runs early in the opening set, but it was the Cougars that took a 20-17 lead after a block from Piper Harkness and Devyn Grimsrud. The Cascades would push back, getting kills from
Talia Attieh and
Mandi Feist, to tie it up at 21. Both teams would trade shots from there, but with the score locked at 24 apiece, UFV setter
Cailin Bitter found a kill down the line before setting up
Lauren Attieh for the kill on set point.
After Regina scored the first three points of the second set, UFV took control. The Cascades found kills from Feist and
Lauren Attieh before the latter scored a pair of aces. Side outs from each team made the score 6-4 for UFV, but a monstrous 11-point service run from Hardy-Francis gave the visitors a 17-4 lead. Both teams once again found side outs on kills from Regina's Harkness and UFV's
Zoe Arca, to bring Fisher to the service line. The fourth-year setter knocked down three straight aces to make it 24-5 before the Cascades closed out the set 25-6.
UFV continued to look dominant in the third, as Feist knocked down consecutive aces to make it 17-11, and
Lauren Attieh finished off the match with yet another ace at 25-14.
Notable:
The Cascades racked up 12 aces in the match, with
Lauren Attieh picking up five of those to lead the team, compared to just one ace for Regina.
Mandi Feist led the Cascades with 13 kills, a .417 hitting percentage, two aces and five digs, while
Talia Attieh hit .500 on the night with 12 kills, and four digs. Hardy-Francis finished with six kills while hitting .455, and setter
Cailin Bitter ended the match with 33 assists.
Quotable:
UFV head coach
Janelle Rozema
"In that first set it was still like we were playing in a different space, but I think our ball control skills really started to click in the second set and onwards."
"Alicja [Hardy-Francis] has really stepped up her game. She's been contributing with some strategic target serving and doing a great job of blocking and being involved in the offence for sure."
"Tomorrow, I think we need to continue to be in control of our first contact, and make sure all of our attackers are involved in the offence. Make sure we move the ball throughout and continue to use our serve as a weapon from the endline."
Up next:
The Cascades and the Cougars meet once again on Saturday, with the first serve set for 3pm PT. The game can also be seen live on Canada West TV.
