Griffins continue to fight through adversity as they prepare for Winnipeg road trip

Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – This is what adversity looks like.

A wave of injuries that hit the MacEwan men’s volleyball team earlier this season has given way to bouts of sickness that have kept multiple players out of the lineup in recent weeks.

If there is a positive, it’s that the Griffins have been able to give young players plenty of live action that they wouldn’t normally have gotten, which only bodes well for the future of the program.

“It’s frustrating being where we are with the record and the injuries, but it does open up opportunities,” said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski. “I use Seth (Birkholz) as a good example. In his first season last year, he really got to play a lot and I think that benefitted him this year. He’s a second year with probably third year experience. That’s going to benefit him for the next few years. 

“I look at other guys like Sawyer (Cousins) getting in and getting some good experience (last weekend in his hometown of Kamloops, B.C.). When you train, you talk about things you’ve got to get better at, but when you play against other U SPORTS guys, it can really help with ‘wow, that’s the level.’ For some guys, that can be a big motivator – that’s what’s going to drive me the next seven or eight months heading into next season. 

“Getting on court definitely has benefits and hopefully that’s something we’re looking back on a year down the road: that was good experience for those guys to get those opportunities.”

The Griffins could be relying on young guys again as they visit the Winnipeg Wesmen this weekend for matches on Friday (6:45 p.m. MT) and Saturday (4 p.m. MT, both Canada West TV).

As if being short-handed wasn’t tough enough, the Griffins’ flight home from Kamloops, B.C. last Saturday night was cancelled due to the cold weather, so they had to charter a bus to take them home on Monday, causing them to miss a key practice day.

“We only had two practices this week and were down four guys the one day,” said Poplawski. “We unfortunately didn’t get as much out of this week as we would have wanted. 

“We’re just trying to fight through it. Hopefully we have a good practice tomorrow morning in Winnipeg and be ready to go tomorrow night.”

The Griffins are coming in off a pair of losses to Thompson Rivers last weekend, but showed some solid signs on Night 2, particularly the play of Birkholz, who had seven blocks in just three sets.

“I don’t like being an easy team to play against where teams can do whatever they want, and we can’t stop it,” said Poplawski. “So, we really emphasized that in our morning video (session). “Seth really had a good bounce back on the Saturday. As a team, we weren’t good blocking, but I thought he led the way for us, which kept us in sets a little at times.”

That will again be an emphasis against the Wesmen (9-7), who enter the weekend seventh in the Canada West standings and will be hungry to further their chances of locking up a playoff spot.

“It starts from the service line,” said Poplawski. “If we’re just serving muffins at them, it’s a pretty easy game. So, we have to serve tougher and try to take them out of system. 

“Obviously, they’re a very good team, they’re big, they’re physical, so if they’re passing 4s all night, it’s going to be a short night. From the baseline, that has to help our block defence. We can’t just have guys swinging against one-on-ones all day. We have to try and serve them out of system, get some high ball situations, and hopefully we can touch a few things and transition.”