The UFV Cascades will have home court advantage throughout their run in the Canada West playoffs after closing out the regular season with a five-set victory (11-25, 25-21, 25-20, 24-26, 15-12) over the UBC Thunderbirds on Saturday. 

The win clinches the team the top seed in the conference – a huge accomplishment just four seasons after making the jump to the Canada West and USPORTS level. The USPORTS No. 5 ranked Cascades top the standings with a 17-3 record, while the No. 3 ranked Thunderbirds finish at 15-5 in fourth.

How it happened:
After the defending national champions cruised to the opening set win, the Cascades found their footing in the second. UBC led 8-4 early, but the Cascades battled back and two kills from Lauren Attieh brought them level at nine. After a couple more kills from Attieh and a Cailin Bitter ace, the Cascades took a 14-11 lead. A block from Mo Likness and Mandi Feist put the Cascades up 24-20, and a UBC service error gave UFV the set win to tie up the match.

UFV kept the pressure on in the third, going up 6-2 early, and after a bit of push back from the Thunderbirds a Sydney Wright ace made it 16-11. Wright found two more late kilsl to make it 23-16, and after a short UBC surge, Mandi Feist found a pair of kills to finish the set 25-20.

UBC snagged a 21-17 lead in the fourth, but a pair of kills each from Attieh and Zoe Arca tied it up at 21. The teams traded points to be level at 24, but UBC found the edge with the next two kills to force a fifth set.

Up 7-6 in the decisive set, UFV rattled off the next four points to take control, but UBC once again fought back with two small runs to close the Cascades lead to 12-11. A kill from Likness gave UFV the momentum, and a massive block from Feist put the Cascades on the brink. Feist once again came up huge on match point, powering a cross court shot through the block and off a defender before it fell to the floor, giving the Cascades the victory 15-12.

Notable:
Mandi Feist had 19 kills and 13 digs, Lauren Attieh earned 13 kills, three aces, and 10 digs, with Alicja Hardy-Francis contributing six kills. Setter Cailin Bitter had 33 assists and 17 digs in the match. Sydney Wright was steady picking up five kills and an ace on the right side after stepping in for Talia Attieh who left Friday's match with an injury.

The Cascades now await the winner of next week's play-in series between Trinity Western University and the University of Saskatchewan to find out their quarterfinal opponent.

Quotable:
"Right now it feels surreal. It's already such an honour to be a part of every time this program reaches a new milestone, but I say to my coaches often we reach these moments when we are going through adversity. We had an injury to a pretty important piece of our starting lineup yesterday, so it just makes this win feel that much sweeter. It wasn't like everything was rolling for us and the stars aligned, we had to grit it out and that feels great," UFV head coach Janelle Rozema noted about the accomplishment.

"Having this bye weekend, it will be interesting to see what work we can do in the gym, what kind of final pieces we're able to put into our style of play, and focusing on not taking our foot off the gas but take a breather to refuel and get healthy as well,"