Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — The volleyball gods can just be downright cruel sometimes.
The MacEwan Griffins had lost 18 straight games to the University of Calgary Dinos, and the Griffins looked poised to earn their first-ever win over them, as they had a 14-10 lead in the fifth set.
But the Dinos made a crazy comeback, scoring six straight points to earn a five-set victory over the Griffins (18-25, 30-28, 22-25, 25-23, 14-16) Friday night at the David Atkinson gymnasium.
Fifth-year outside hitter Alexei Walisser led the Griffins with 23 kills and seven digs, while third-year outside hitter Jefferson Morrow recorded 14 kills and 12 digs and Mitch Gorman chipped in with nine kills and 13 digs in the loss for the Griffins.
Zach Evans led the Dinos attack with 21 kills and five digs in the win for Calgary, as MacEwan fell to 0-7 on the season, and have dropped 19 straight games to the Dinos, who improved to 2-5.
"This game may hurt the most out of any game I've lost in my volleyball career. It definitely hurts," said Walisser.
"We have everything we need in that locker room to beat that team, we just need to find that extra edge and be able to put our heads down and close out sets.
"We can't ever for a second think, we're good, we got this. We need to push until the end, and that has to be the mindset, because these teams are all very good in this league, and they'll pounce on any opportunity you give them."
After dropping the opening set, the Griffins came through with a huge second set victory pulling out a marathon 30-28 set win, thanks to six Walisser kills in the second set.
The Dinos narrowly won the third set 25-22, and with their backs against the wall, the Griffins came through with a big 25-23 fourth set win that saw the teams tied 13 different times.
Walisser came up with two late kills, and he and Gorman teamed up for a key block in the late stages to send the match to a fifth set.
In the fifth set, the Griffins were rolling.
Walisser connected on his first ace of the match to give the Griffins a 7-3 lead, and then a tip from Gorman and a huge block from Jonah Karsten made it 9-5, but then their mistakes started to get amplified, especially at the service line.
Both teams combined to make 46 service errors, and MacEwan needed to be aggressive at the service line to not give Dinos middle Louis Kunstmann more opportunities to do more damage, but it definitely hurt with six service errors in the fifth set.
"You have to maintain pressure and continue to serve aggressively. You can't can't get soft just because the game is close. That doesn't close games in this league," said Walisser.
"I just think it's about calculated aggression and understanding the scenario. You have to find a way to put the ball in, and still put them under pressure. It's a fine line of not trying to do too much, but not doing too little."
When it came down to the final moments of the fifth set, Dinos outside hitter Liam Kuppe stepped up his service game when the Dinos needed it most.
Evan got a kill to cut the lead to 14-12.
Erik Godwin and Lincoln Baines teamed up to block a Walisser kill, and then Godwin got back-to-back kills to complete the comeback.
"You just have to find a way at the end… there's no other way to put it. I tip my hat to Calgary, they made a lot of great plays at the end. They defended really well when we had our match points." said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski.
"I just feel bad for our guys. They did everything we asked of them. This one definitely hurts.
"I'm proud of our effort. We always talk a lot in our room about finding that 2%, and we found it all night, until it was 14-10, and then we couldn't get over that hump.
"We earned that chance to have this feeling to be a little gutted right now. I want to have that chance to earn that feeling tomorrow. It sucks, and I know it hurts, but we have to leave here with our heads up, and everything is about tomorrow, because we don't want to feel this way tomorrow."
