Just four seasons after making the jump from the Pacwest to Canada West, the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades women's volleyball team is sitting atop the standings.
UFV closed off the 2024-25 season with a 3-2 (11-25, 25-21, 25-20, 24-26 and 15-12) win over the UBC Thunderbirds in Vancouver on Saturday (Feb. 15) to clinch first place in the conference and earn a first round playoff bye.
The Cascades finished the season at 17-3 and edged out the Alberta Golden Bears in the tiebreaker via points. UFV first joined Canada West in the 2021-22 season the women finished at 7-11. They improved to 18-6 in 2022-23 and were 20-4 in 2024-25, but had never finished higher than third overall.
WVB | Regular season history made!
— UFV Cascades (@UFVCascades) February 16, 2025
For the first time in program history, the UFV Cascades women’s volleyball team will enter the @CanadaWest playoffs with the No. 1 seed! pic.twitter.com/1XcstM5UzX
Women's head coach Janella Rozema said it was an amazing feeling to earn the top seed.
"Right now it feels surreal," she stated. "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."
The Cascades entered the weekend needing just one win out of two against UBC, but fell 3-0 (25-20, 28-26 and 25-19) to the Thunderbirds on Friday (Feb. 14).
Saturday's game saw Mandi Feist collect 19 kills and 13 digs (and score the game-winning shot), Lauren Attieh score 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 picked up five kills and an ace on the right side after stepping in for Talia Attieh who left Friday's match with an injury.
WVB | Mandi Feist with a big swing from the backrow! pic.twitter.com/mYDt90uwNb
— UFV Cascades (@UFVCascades) February 16, 2025
Rozema hopes the team can use the bye week to heal up and prepare. The Cascades now await the winner of this week's play-in series between Trinity Western University and the University of Saskatchewan to find out their quarterfinal opponent.
"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," she said.
Meanwhile, the UFV men's volleyball team is also heading to the playoffs despite a pair of 3-0 losses to UBC on Friday and Saturday.
The men finished the season at 7-13 and ended the season losing five of the last six, but managed to stay ahead of the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack to earn the 10th and final playoff spot.
The men advance to the play-in round and take on the Calgary Dinos in Calgary. The best-of-three series is set for Thursday (Feb. 20), Friday (Feb. 21) and, if necessary, Saturday (Feb. 22).
