Mason Greves lead ‘Birds over Griffins for second straight night

EDMONTON – Second verse, same as the first. The UBC Thunderbirds (3-3) took down the MacEwan Griffins (0-8) in four sets (25-23, 26-24, 27-29, 25-19) for the second straight night at David Atkinson Gymnasium to get back to .500 on the young Canada West season.

Saturday’s match was much closer than Friday’s however, as MacEwan held late leads in both of the opening two sets, which were won by UBC, took the third set, and were right with the Thunderbirds for much of the fourth.
 

Setters are sometimes the forgotten heroes of successful teams, but the contributions of Mason Greves were front and center for the T-Birds over the course of the weekend. Greves followed up a fantastic 43 assist and 17 dig performance on Friday with an eye-popping 52 assists, 10 digs and, perhaps most remarkably, a game-high six blocks in the tight victory. He added an ace for good measure.

On the attack, it was new T-Bird Gavin Moes who led the team, and match, with 19 kills, while Reeve Gingera had 14 kills of his own, along with three aces.

MacEwan was led by Daylan Andison with 12 kills, 10 digs and an ace, while Mitchel Gorman had eight kills.

“They have Gingera,” summed up Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski Poplawski. “He’s got an unreal arm. Big players make big plays. When they needed that big kill, he got it. We had some opportunities. We had set points a couple times, but unfortunately didn’t get the ball to the floor. When they needed it, it was No. 2 for them killing the ball. We gave ourselves opportunities, we made some really good digs. We fought back. We were just that one kills short in two of those sets.”

The blue and gold now bring their two game winning streak home to take on the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack, who the ‘Birds beat 3-0 in an exhibition tournament just over a month ago. The games will Friday and Saturday evening at War Memorial Gym. Tickets can be purchased here.