Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — The MacEwan Griffins men's volleyball team simply couldn't stop the bleeding against the Calgary Dinos on Friday night.
Slow starts plagued MacEwan as they dropped three-straight sets to Calgary (25-29, 25-14, 25-16) at David Atkinson Gym.
Second-year outside hitter Jefferson Morrow led the Griffins with eight kills and seven digs, while first-year middle Carsten Bergeron chipped in with six kills.
MacEwan struggled from the service line, committing 10 errors, while not recording a service ace.
Fourth-year outside hitter Liam Kuppe led the Dinos with nine kills and three digs in the victory as the Dinos improved to 7-4, while MacEwan fell to 1-10 in Canada West action.
"We started OK in that first set, but towards the middle, it's like we're in cruise, and they're a nationally-ranked team. You have to keep pushing the whole time," said Morrow.
"We made far too many errors and mistakes tonight and they made us pay. We need to be better in every way."
Earlier this season, the Griffins battled the Dinos hard in a four-set loss in November, but in their second matchup of the season a couple months later, MacEwan struggled mightily.
After a fairly close opening set, MacEwan struggled to gain any momentum in the second set, and by the third set, the Dinos had it in cruise control.
They jumped out to a 6-1 lead, and then blew it wide open leading 17-7.
Down 24-12, MacEwan showed some fight to close out the third set on a 5-0 run, but the Dinos were just too strong.
"It's been a problem for us lately. We've had slow starts to games, so starts to sets and we have to find a solution," said second-year setter Alexander Lyndon.
"We know we can play with these teams when we're firing, but we're just not there right now as far as our own execution. It's all on us right now."
MacEwan has dropped three straight to start the second half of the Canada West season, and they need to get back on track to try and make up some ground in the standings. They've certainly learned a few tough lessons along the way.
"We're being shown the speed of the game that volleyball is right now, and you can't afford to lose focus, even for a split second, because that's when you lose a point," said Lyndon.
"It adds up throughout the course of the game, and we need to be better and switch it on for the whole match.
"Our big thing is we want to get better every week, and the last time we played these guys we were much better than we were tonight. We've got to find a way to bring the level we know we can bring and be more consistent than we are at the moment."
MacEwan will finish off their two-game series against the Dinos, Saturday night at 6:30 p.m.
