Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
KELOWNA, B.C. – They entered the gym known as The Furnace and went against a team called the Heat, but it was the MacEwan Griffins men’s volleyball team that brought the fire on Friday night.
Fresh off a home sweep last weekend over Thompson Rivers, the Griffins burned the UBC-Okanagan Heat with sizzling play in all areas of the court, extending their winning streak to three straight with a 3-0 win (25-20, 25-19, 27-25).
“I’m pretty sure this is our first three-game winning streak in MacEwan men’s volleyball (Canada West) history,” said head coach Brad Poplawski, who has been at the helm of the program since 2011 and led the squad into Canada West in 2014. “It’s bittersweet that it took so long to do it, but pretty cool. I told the guys that: ‘I know there’s been some tough losses this year, but you’ve done something that hadn’t been done before tonight and I want them to recognize that.
“I was really impressed because they were talking about the things we worked on all week and the things we did well. But they already went to talking about tomorrow and the things we have to be better at. It’s a very mature approach to our preparation and to a win.”
With the victory, the Griffins improved to 4-17 in the Canada West standings and climbed out of the cellar past idle UFV (4-19), while dropping UBCO to 6-15.
“I’m just proud of the group,” said Poplawski. “We obviously know the job’s only half done and we want to be better tomorrow. They enjoyed it in the team room and the second we got out we’re on to tomorrow. We’re going to try to keep this thing going.”
The rematch will go on Saturday (4 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).
On Friday, the Griffins were led by setter Alexander Lyndon, who had 36 assists in three sets, giving MacEwan outsides Jefferson Morrow (14 kills and 11 digs), Mitchel Gorman (13 kills on a .524 hitting percentage, adding six digs) and Alexei Walisser (10 kills and six digs) a chance to shine.
“I thought Alex ran a brilliant offence tonight,” said Poplawski. “Him and Mason (Natras) have been doing some really good stuff for us. I thought we had a really productive video session with the two of them this week. I thought they worked on what we wanted to do in training.
“It all starts with our passes. They’re a very good serving team and for the most part we did a really good job against their spin servers. I thought our guys did a good job and it allowed Alex to run a good offence.
“Our outsides had a really good night because of it. And it was good to see young Seth Birkholz get his very first start in quite a while. He started and played the full match for us and that was pretty cool to see. As the match went on, he started to get a little bit more comfortable and we want to use that as a building block for him, as well.”
“It was a really good team effort tonight.”
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