Griffins battle through three close sets but suffer 3-0 defeat to Bisons

Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

WINNIPEG – Again so close to getting over the hump, the MacEwan Griffins dropped three highly-contested sets to the Manitoba Bisons on Friday night.

Those clutch points, as has been a case all year, continued to elude them as they lost 29-27, 25-19, 25-21.

With the result, the Griffins fall to 0-13 on the Canada West season, while the Bisons improve to 5-8.

“Our highlight reel from this game was quite good, it’s just the little things around it,” said MacEwan head coach Brad Poplawski. “Just some errors at bad times and I think we looked really tentative and nervous to start and we kind of played that way. 

“It took us too long to get going. It was just kind of inconsistent. The effort was there, it was just our execution and skills were a little inconsistent at times.”

It didn’t help that due to some travel issues getting to Winnipeg last night, the Griffins didn’t arrive at their hotel until 12:30 a.m. with one player being forced to get up at 4 a.m. to catch a 6:45 flight on Friday morning.

“It was a bit of adversity,” said Poplawski. “Not to make excuses, but I’m hoping our energy level can be a bit better as a team tomorrow.”

Due to technical issues at the University of Manitoba, there were no stats available on Friday night. But Poplawski is certain Alexei Walisser led the Griffins in kills.

“He’s just been so good for us, putting up good numbers for us every night,” he said.

“He’s a high volume guy who’s finding different ways to contribute. When we clawed our way back in the third, he had a big block for us, had a couple good serves, scoring on a couple D balls, which is huge because it opened up our offence.”

Poplawski also singled out strong performances from outside hitter Jefferson Morrow, middle Carsten Bergeron, setter Alex Lyndon and libero Ryan Wasylyshyn.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed with the result, but there’s some stuff I hope we can build on,” said Poplawski.

The rematch is slated for Saturday (4 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).