Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – How sweep it is.
Those words haven’t been uttered around the MacEwan men’s volleyball team in more than four years, but after a 3-1 win on Saturday, they voraciously celebrated a well-earned weekend sweep over the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack.
Mitchel Gorman‘s serve on match point wasn’t handled as the Griffins took Set 4 to win 23-25, 25-21, 26-24, 25-21, following up the 3-1 triumph they had over TRU on Friday.
“That was my first time experiencing that,” said Griffins middle Jonah Karsten. “(We’re) finishing the season with confidence. It would have been easy to mail it in, being eliminated from playoffs, but we needed to some momentum, needed to have that feeling. To get two this weekend was just huge for us moving forward.”
The last time the Griffins men’s volleyball team won two straight in a weekend was a pair of 3-0 wins over UBC-Okanagan in October 2018.
With the result, the Griffins improve to 3-17, dropping the WolfPack to 8-12 in the Canada West standings.
“The toughest thing is always to get that second one,” said Griffins’ head coach Brad Poplawski. “We knew they’d be better and they were. We talked yesterday after the game defensively how we want to be. We maybe didn’t have our ‘A’ game at all times tonight, but our defence, I thought, was super engaged.
“I thought our guys’ mental attitude on defence was awesome today. Even if a ball scored, we had two, three, sometimes four guys going for it. That gave us a lot of balls we maybe don’t normally pick up.”
Alexei Walisser led the Griffins with 14 kills and 10 digs, while Jefferson Morrow had 13 kills and 10 digs, and Gorman completed a fantastic weekend for the team with 12 kills on a .385 hitting percentage, adding 12 digs and a service ace.
Sam Flowerday led the WolfPack with a match-high 18 kills, seven digs, an ace and three blocks, while Rylan Ibbetson recorded 16 kills, two aces, eight digs and three blocks.
MacEwan has lost its fair share of close sets this season, but they were the clutch team all weekend.
“I just think we’re starting to play a complete game of volleyball,” said Walisser. “We’re not letting the lows affect us as much and we’re able to bounce back a lot quicker and a lot sharper.
“All seven guys on the court and all 10 guys on the bench are absolutely firing because our confidence is there now. I guess it’s just that belief, that trust. All the work we’ve put in throughout the year is starting to pay off.”
After losing on Friday night, TRU came out with a ton of energy in the opening set and earned an 11-5 lead off the hop. MacEwan hit back with a 10-2 run and the set stayed close until the final points when Walisser’s serve went into the net on TRU’s second set point opportunity.
In Set 2, MacEwan hit the gas and reached 20 points first with a four-point lead and never looked back, winning it on their first set point opportunity off a tremendous defensive rally before the head official overruled the line judge, determining TRU’s attack went long.
Set 3 appeared to belong to the visiting WolfPack as they took a 17-13 lead and forced the Griffins to change setters from Mason Natras to Alexander Lyndon in a bid to mix it up. The Aussie came in and provided the turning point in the match with back-to-back aces and a late-set kill on the second touch. MacEwan rallied to win it after Karsten won a joust at the net off a great jump serve from Walisser.
“Alex came in in that third set and got us two huge aces,” said Walisser. “That was a huge momentum shift. Playing in your home gym, you want to serve a little tougher, being more comfortable here. I think we were able to do that yesterday and we kind of carried that into today.”
Set 4 was close all the way through, but it was the Griffins who found a way late, ending the match on Gorman’s serve.
In the end, all those close-set losses throughout the 2022-23 season are paying off now.
“I think after every time we lost those tight ones, I said it’s good for us to be in these tight games and learn what it takes,” said Poplawski.
“I just think we’ve been in so many of them the guys know how to respond now. They’ve served with pressure. They’ve passed at match point. We’ve been in these situations, so they were able to execute when they had the opportunity.”
The Griffins next head out on the road for a weekend series at UBC-Okanagan on Feb. 10-11. TRU visits Trinity Western on the same nights.
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