With heartbreak behind them, Griffins focusing on building off positives ahead of trip to Brandon

Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – It could have been debilitating for the MacEwan men’s volleyball team after they blew a 14-10 lead in the fifth-and-final set against the Calgary Dinos to lose 16-14 and 3-2 in last Friday’s match.

They immediately chose to look at it another way, however.

“I’m trying to get them to focus on the things we did well and why we were in that position to feel kind of gutted,” said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski. “We played well for two hours and 28 minutes, but it was a two hour, 30 minute game. So, we did the right things to put ourselves in that position. 

“A lot of guys played really well. Alexei (Walisser) had good numbers, our passing was good.”

Walisser’s 23-kill performance that night was, in fact, tied for the seventh most by a Griffin in a Canada West match – (only Max Vriend and current assistant coach Lee Iverson have ever had more) – so it’s the kind of performance that deserves to be celebrated.

“That’s a switch we’ve made in the last three weeks now that we’ve moved him to the right side full time,” said Poplawski of Walisser, who is currently ninth in the conference with 103 kills so far this season. “He obviously carries a lot of offence for us, and the hope is when teams start to key on him a bit more that other guys can step up and keep that 3-6 zone going with our pipe and hopefully have our left sides get more one-on-one opportunities.”

That’s the hope this weekend as the Griffins (0-8) visit the Brandon Bobcats (2-6) on Friday (6:45 p.m. MT) and Saturday (5:45 p.m., both Canada West TV).

Another positive the Griffins are taking out of last weekend where they pushed the Dinos to the limit but fell both nights (also losing 3-1 on Saturday), is their passing, which was very solid. It’s the type of foundational piece everything else is built upon.

“Our passing (on Saturday) was even better than the night before,” said Poplawski of last weekend. “Those are good things that we’re trying to solidify because like any team when we pass we can be in system a lot more and be tougher to stop. 

“We can’t just assume our passing,” he added. “We have to keep working on it. We’ve still put a lot of emphasis on it this week, but it’s nice to see the work the guys are putting in. We play some pretty good serving teams and Brandon, they’re a very good serving team, so they’re going to stress us and we’re going to have to give them some different looks and try to get the matchups we want because they put a lot of stress on teams from the baseline.”