Match that could have gone either way goes to UBC 3-1 as clutch points elude Griffins

Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – So many of their metrics were better on Saturday, but the result ended up being the same for the MacEwan Griffins men’s volleyball team – a 3-1 loss to the UBC Thunderbirds.

The match truly could have gone either way as MacEwan held late leads in both of the opening two sets, which were won by UBC, took the third set and were right with the Thunderbirds for much of the fourth. But the visitors escaped with a 25-23, 26-24, 27-29, 25-19 win.

“We were harder to play against today,” said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski. “To be honest, that’s probably the best we’ve looked this year. Battling adversity again, it’s just kind of been the tale of our year. But next man up, we were able to make it work and give ourselves opportunity again. 

“It sucks we can’t close these out and find those kills when it is by one point, but I think there’s a lot to take away. We talk about our identity and what we want to look like. Today was much closer to the team we want to be.”

With the result, the Griffins are now 0-8 in the Canada West standings, while UBC improves to 3-3.

Gavin Moes led UBC with 19 kills, eight digs and two blocks, while Reeve Gingera had 14 kills.

MacEwan was led by Daylan Andison with 12 kills, 10 digs and an ace, while Mitchel Gorman had eight kills.

“After yesterday, at video this morning, we identified a couple of things,” said Poplawski. “I set what I thought were some pretty lofty goals. I wanted to see how they responded, and they showed me. They did a good job. 

“We wanted to hold their offensive guys to lower numbers and we did. We wanted to do a better job on the off-speed and we did. Our hitting percentage yesterday was too low and theirs was too high. We had to try and get those together.”

Unfortunately, MacEwan’s efforts were hampered by more bad luck as setter Samuel Rains went down with an injury late in the second set after a UBC player came under the net and landed on him. It’s just the latest injury calamity that has befell the Griffins as they’ve been dealing with multiple injuries since the campaign began.

Owen Johnson came up with two big clutch kills in the third set, allowing the Griffins to win one off the Thunderbirds (Lisa Cannon photo).

Owen Johnson entered the match for Rains and ended up being the difference-maker in the third set, won by the Griffins. He came up with clutch kills that earned MacEwan two set points and they finally converted on the second one to end a marathon 29-27.

“There wasn’t a lot of pressure,” said Johnson, who had kills that got the Griffins 25-24 and 28-27 leads. “I’ve been in before. It’s just like a practice. Volleyball’s volleyball. I come in off the bench and obviously all my teammates have been super supportive. 

“It’s still a goal to go out and win. There weren’t a lot of nerves there. I just had to come in and do my job.”

Johnson finished with five kills and three digs.

“Owen was put in a tough spot,” said Poplawski. “He had to go in and did a good job. We’re trying to have that next man up mentality. I thought Owen, especially in that third set, had a couple really good slow down blocks and a couple clutch kills for us. He’s a guy who hasn’t been on the court a ton for us, but he’s played a lot these last couple of weeks. A bit of adversity, put in a tough spot, but he came in and did some good things. And that’s how we were able to close that third set out.”

MacEwan also had chances to close out the first couple sets, but in both cases the Thunderbirds had the clutch answer, taking three-straight points in both to close them out.

“They have Gingera,” summed up Poplawski. “He’s got an unreal arm. Big players make big plays. When they needed that big kill, he got it. We had some opportunities. We had set points a couple times, but unfortunately didn’t get the ball to the floor. When they needed it, it was No. 2 for them killing the ball. We gave ourselves opportunities, we made some really good digs. We fought back. We were just that one kills short in two of those sets.”

Next up for the Griffins is a home weekend vs. Brandon Nov. 17-18. They have plenty to build off of out of the UBC weekend, even if they came up short.

“Obviously, the result’s unfortunate,” said Johnson. “It’s not what we wanted to do, but we did have a lot of good volleyball and a lot of good points. I think we need to take that forward into this week of training and then show up again next weekend.”