Cascades complete weekend sweep of Blues on the road

The University of the Fraser Valley men’s volleyball team earned its first weekend sweep on the road this season, beating the Capilano Blues in three straight sets on Saturday evening in North Vancouver.

The Cascades, coming off a four-set triumph on Friday, prevailed by set scores of 25-20, 25-17 and 25-22 in the rematch to improve to 12-8 on the season, tied for third place in the PACWEST with the Vancouver Island University Mariners.

UFV head coach Kyle Donen felt Friday’s victory had been a little ragged, but he was pleased with Saturday’s effort.

“Overall, just a cleaner game for us,” he summarized. “We did some of the little things better tonight – our passing was on point, and that made it difficult for Cap to keep track of what we were doing on offence. It was good to see us have that improvement in our passing, because it’s something we have been working on.

“And it’s not what we were thinking about, but to get that two-game sweep on the road is big for us. It was important for us to play that well on the road.”

Right side Joel Kleingeltink and left side Adam Chaplin, the Cascades’ high-volume, high-efficiency attackers, were their usual dangerous selves on Saturday, and Donen felt that left side Nick Bruce gave the team a huge spark defensively.

“He might have passed two balls that weren’t perfect, and that made a huge difference,” Donen said. “He was the catalyst for us on the passing side.”

The Cascades volleyball teams are back at home next weekend, hosting the Douglas Royals. Games run Friday (women 6 p.m., men 8 p.m.) and Saturday (women 5 p.m., men 7 p.m.) at the Student Activity Centre.

Dan Kinvig,  UFV Communications Coordinator