Abbotsford’s two PacWest volleyball schools wrap up the regular season this week with a series of head-to-head match-ups with major playoff implications.
The Columbia Bible College Bearcats and University of the Fraser Valley Cascades clash in a home-and-home set – Thursday at UFV, and Saturday at CBC (women 6 p.m., men 8 p.m. both nights).
On the men’s side, the Bearcats and Cascades are scrapping and clawing for the PacWest’s sixth and final playoff berth.
The Bearcats currently hold down that spot with a 6-16 record – they picked up a pair of key wins earlier this semester via forfeit, as the Douglas Royals were penalized for using an ineligible player after sweeping CBC on Jan. 18-19.
The Cascades (4-18) can sneak past the Bearcats with a pair of wins this week, but CBC only needs a split to clinch the last post-season spot.
On the women’s side, the Bearcats are locked into the PacWest’s third seed at 13-9, while the Cascades (20-2) are in a battle for the top seed with Vancouver Island University (19-3).
If UFV can sweep CBC, they would finish first in league play for the first time in program history. The ’Cats, meanwhile, will need to defeat either UFV or VIU in the provincial playoff semifinals to earn a national championship berth, and they’ll be eager to prove they have what it takes to hang with the the Cascades, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, this week.
ABBY TEAMS SPANK AVALANCHE
The College of the Rockies volleyball teams endured a rocky trip to Abbotsford last week, as their men's and women's squads were swept by both the Bearcats and the Cascades.
The Cranbrook-based Avalanche dropped two games apiece to CBC on Thursday and Friday, then suffered the same fate when they took on UFV on Friday and Saturday.
BEARCATS HOOPSTERS ON THE BRINK
The CBC men's basketball team's playoff hopes suffered a blow on the weekend, as they dropped a pair of home games.
The Bearcats fell 95-80 to Douglas on Friday, and on Saturday, they were unable to engineer another upset win over the Langara Falcons. CBC had knocked off Langara – ranked No. 1 in the nation at the time – back on Jan. 19, but they succumbed by a score of 101-87 on Saturday.
The CBC men now find themselves on the wrong side of the playoff bubble – they're in seventh place at 6-13, one game back of the Capilano Blues and Camosun Chargers. They wrap up the regular season on the road, facing VIU on Friday and Camosun on Saturday.
The Bearcats women's basketball team fell to 0-19 on the season with a pair of weekend losses – 65-38 to Douglas and 67-51 to Langara.