Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Going through a tough season, MacEwan Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski knows there will be some inconsistencies, but one thing he always wants to see is effort, and after his team’s straight sets loss (25-14, 25-18-25-21) to the Manitoba Bisons, he was disappointed.
“We had nothing going in those first two sets at all,” said Poplawski.
“We weren’t even close to good enough, I don’t know. We were just bad.”
Mitchel Gorman led the Griffins with 11 kills and seven digs, while Seth Birkholz chipped in with five kills. Spencer Grahame led Manitoba with 16 kills, while Eric Oragaranko recorded eight kills and 12 digs in the win.
MacEwan falls to 0-14, while Manitoba improves to 10-4 this season.
The Griffins didn’t hold a single lead through the first two sets, and they didn’t take their first lead of the game until they took a 1-0 advantate in the third set.
For a young team going through growing pains, being stuck in chase mode virtually the entire match only makes things more difficult.
“We competed yesterday, and I was proud of our effort. We took a set off against a really good team, and our effort was there the entire game. Tonight, we didn’t compete at all. I can handle losing, but not the way we lost today,” said Poplawski.
“Tonight, we didn’t show up. Manitoba’s had harder practices this year. We had no push back, no fight, no fire. Guys didn’t look like they wanted to play today.”
The Griffins allowed Manitoba to go on big scoring runs in the first two sets, and they couldn’t sustain or grab momentum.
“We were serving so poorly that they were siding out so easily on us, because we were serving so slowly,” said Poplawski.
“It’s just impossible to compete when your play is so up and down, and you let teams continuously go on runs of four and five points (in-a-row).”
While neither of the first two sets were close, the Griffins did have a better third set. They got off to a better start, but Manitoba didn’t allow the Griffins to go on any kind of big scoring run.
The Bisons tied the third set 7-7, and then went on a 6-2 run to lead 13-9. Manitoba continued to pour it on and led 18-13, before an ace from Daylan Andison stopped the Bisons run.
Back-to-back kills from Alexander Lyndon, who finished with four kills and 23 assists and then a big block from Birkholz cut Manitoba’s lead to 18-17.
Another kill from Andison made it 23-21, but the Bisons would finish off the weekend with the sweep of the Griffins.
“This is supposed to be the reward for all the hard work we put in this week, and we were so flat,” said Poplawski.
“When you compete hard and lose, and the team is just better than you, I can handle that, but we didn’t do anything we talked about in video today. Our block was non-existent, our defence was non-existent. Just completely disappointed.”
MacEwan will be on the road for the next two weeks when they travel to Kamloops to face the Thompson Rivers WolfPack next weekend and then to Winnipeg to take on the Winnipeg Wesmen on Jan. 19-20.
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