Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
VANCOUVER – Applying some serving pressure on the UBC Thunderbirds, the MacEwan Griffins crushed the perennial powerhouse 25-10 in the third set on Friday night.
Unfortunately, they lost three other close sets to fall 3-1 (25-23, 25-22, 10-25, 25-20) in the match, but the game felt like a building block for Brad Poplawski's young squad.
"Today was probably the first time I saw us trusting in the system, trusting in the process and trusting in each other," said the Griffins head coach. "I'm really hoping it was a bit of a building block for us because I was really proud of our performance tonight.
"They made one or two plays at the end of sets, but we earned that opportunity to be in those close games against a very good team. I hope the guys recognize that they put in a really good performance tonight."
With the result, the Griffins fall to 0-5, while the Thunderbirds improve to 4-1.
Despite the loss, MacEwan can take plenty of positives into Saturday's rematch (7:45 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).
"It was a good battle," said Poplawski. "We played well. We went with a different lineup, something we repped all week. We moved Alexei (Walisser) to the right side and he was really good today for us. He put up a lot of kills and touched a lot of stuff on the block. It was good to see.
"They're a big-serving, physical team and I really liked our response," he added. "If they got a big kills or big block, we didn't dwell. We just said 'what's important is the next point.' I thought that helped us stay in sets today.
"It just comes down to after 20s just finding a way. Unfortunately, in three of those sets that were close, they just made a play or two at the end … and that ended up being the difference."
Walisser led the Griffins with a match-high 17 kills on a .286 hitting percentage, while Jefferson Morrow, back after missing last weekend with an injury, recorded 11 kills, and Alex Lyndon had 34 assists and three service aces.
"We wanted to stay aggressive from the service line," said Poplawski. "We said that was one of big goals heading into the weekend. I thought that third set, that's what we did. We started off with Alex Lyndon on the line and he put some really good serves in to kind of get us off to a really nice start."
Now it's a matter of pushing forward for a win on Saturday.
"I know they'll be better tomorrow," said Poplawski. "They weren't happy with their hitting efficiency as a team, so that's going to be a focus for them.
"We learned a lot about them today. We haven't seen these guys in a long time. With their opposite Matty Neaves, sometimes it's one thing to see (that power), it's another to block against it and play defence. So, hopefully, we learned some stuff there."
