Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Their highlight reel is ridiculous from the past two weekends against two of the top-three teams in the country.
Multiple Griffins kills have dented the floor and drawn raucous cheers at the David Atkinson Gym against U SPORTS men’s volleyball No. 1 Alberta and No. 3 Winnipeg.
But that’s the thing with volleyball. You have to do it again. You have to do it all the time.
And that was ultimately the difference between the hard-hitting Griffins and their nationally-ranked counterparts as the consistently-strong and deep Wesmen rolled to another straight-sets victory on Saturday (25-20, 25-20, 25-20).
“Our highlight reels from the last two weekends against No. 1 and 3 in the country are awesome,” agreed MacEwan head coach Brad Poplawski. “It’s just the repeatability of it. We have to make sure we keep doing it.
“When you play a good team like that, you have to really be at a high level the whole time. At times we were and at times they showed why they’re No. 3 in the country.”
With the result, the Wesmen improve to 8-0, dropping the Griffins to 0-8 on the Canada West season.
This wasn’t just another 3-0 loss, though. The Griffins legitimately gave the Wesmen a run, reaching 20 points in all three sets, much improved over Friday when they only had 15 and 14 in the first two sets.
“I think it started with our passing,” said Poplawski. “They identified in video this morning that they weren’t happy with their performance. They all wanted to be better tonight, and they were. If you can’t get the engine started, you can’t play. I thought they bounced back and did a good job, which allowed our setters to run a little bit more offence.”
Sawyer Cousins passes a ball on Saturday. The Griffins were better in serve-receive, allowing them to stay in system more against Winnipeg (James Maclennan photo).
Still, the Wesmen had more in the tank to close things out with Liam Allen’s kill in the middle ending Set 1, an attack error by MacEwan becoming the decisive point in Set 2 and Isaiah Olfert’s kill through the block getting the Wesmen match point.
“Winnipeg’s a good team.,” said Poplawski. “They just keep coming at you. They have a lot of weapons. I thought at times we looked really good, but we’re just a little inconsistent in key areas of the game. Our maybe lack of experience with some new guys shows at times.
“We’re really working hard to speed that process up so we can hang in there longer with teams. We’re not syncing our way through a full match. I still think we’re too reactive to things. That’s a little bit of inexperience and something we’re working to get better at.”
Winnipeg was led by Luke Lodewyks, who had 13 kills, four digs and two blocks, while Olfert chipped in 10 kills, 10 digs and three blocks.
Rookie Mitchell Croft led the Griffins with a match-high 14 kills with two digs and two blocks, accounting for a match-high 15.0 points. Jarod Inia added seven kills, an ace and two digs in just his second start of the season after recovering from an injury.
“It was awesome,” said the former New Zealand Junior National Team member. “It was great to be fully cleared from the ATs. It’s nice to get my rhythm back and start gelling with the team.”
Inia had several huge highlights, including a kill early in the second set that tripled the decibel level in the gym.
“Obviously with Bobby, it’s huge for us to have him back,” said Poplawski. “He was playing so well for us in preseason. He touches so many parts of the game for us with his passing, his offence and his serve, but the problem is when you come off an injury you don’t just pick up where you left off. So, he’s kind of back to preseason right now. It just takes time to get the rust off and get game reps.
“But his good stuff shows the type of player he is and can be for us. Really excited to have him back and we’re just going to keep working with him to get back to the level he wants to be at as soon as possible because he gives us a very big weapon out there.”
Starting setter Mason Natras is also coming back from an injury and is shaking off rust this weekend, so the Griffins opted to also use setter Kenneth Ang in the contest. Ang had 19 assists, while Natras had 10.
“It’s easy,” said Inia when asked about working well with both of them. “We all get along. We have great chemistry with each other. Whoever’s out there is having fun and we’re all enjoying it together.”
The Griffins head into a bye week before returning to action against UBC in Vancouver Nov. 29-30.