A power outage might have delayed the start of the UFV Cascades men’s volleyball season on Friday, but it didn’t dim the team’s performance on Saturday.
UFV hosted the Capilano Blues to open the PacWest season on Saturday (after power outages cancelled Friday’s games), and won in four sets (28-26, 24-26, 25-12 and 27-25).
Sets went to extra points three of the four sets, with UFV dominating set three. Set four saw the Cascades have to come up clutch, with Joel Kleingeltink pounding down his team-leading 15th kill of the night to seal the victory.
Head coach Kyle Donen said his team needs to finish teams off more effectively.
“We just need to do a better job of recognizing that killer instinct that we need to have to finish sets off,” Donen said.
In addition to his 15 kills, fifth-year right side Kleingeltink rang up five blocks and two aces.
Left sides Ben Friesen (13 kills) and Nick Bruce (seven kills) and middle Dayton Pagliericci (six kills, two aces) also had solid offensive performances for the hosts, while libero Isaiah Dahl had 20 digs.
The season didn’t start off as strong for the Cascades women’s team, as they lost in straight sets (25-21, 25-21 and 25-20) to the Blues.
UFV saw four-point leads in both the second and third sets fall apart late.
“We have standards we’ve created out of stats from past years, and we know what we want to hit,” UFV head coach Mike Gilray said, noting that his team’s serving and passing were both subpar on Saturday.
“When we miss those, it’s hard to beat a team with the ability of Cap. They’re going to take advantage of those errors.”
Over in New Westminster, the CBC Bearcats men’s and women’s volleyball teams left Douglas College winless after four games on Friday and Saturday.
The Bearcats men’s team came the closest to notching a win, falling 3-2 to the Royals on Friday. They also lost 3-1 on Saturday. The women suffered a 3-0 loss on Friday, and then lost 3-1 on Saturday.
The battle of Abbotsford between UFV and CBC teams kicks off on Thursday at the Columbia Bible College gym, and continues on Friday at UFV’s Envision Athletic Centre.
Women’s games kick off at 6 p.m., with men’s games occurring at 8 p.m. on both days.
