Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
CALGARY – For all of its intriguing nuances, sometimes volleyball is really this simple: serve, serve-receive.
The short-handed MacEwan Griffins were spectacularly on the wrong side of that recipe on Friday night, conceding 14 service aces in a straight-sets loss to the Mount Royal University Cougars (25-11, 25-15, 25-8).
"Number one thing is they served us off the court," said MacEwan head coach Ken Briggs.
"We were kind of undermanned and we played scared. This is our toughest matchup. They have depth and have two national-level players."
That would be middle Nyadholi Thokbum and setter Quinn Pelland, both of whom have been invited to train with the national team.
"That's not a real big deal," said Briggs. "We were all prepared for Nyadholi today and she only had four kills. But she had five aces. She was part of the bomb squad from the back line."
Madison Marshall added four aces – including one on match point to decide the proceedings – while also pacing the Cougars with 10 kills.
Erica Bolink and Sarah McGee each had four kills to lead MacEwan, but the Griffins had no aces on the evening and were held to an overall hitting percentage of .055.
In all three sets, the Griffins found themselves in a devastating early hole and chased the match all night. They fell behind 8-1 in Set 1, 5-1 in Set 2 and 9-2 in Set 3.
"You know what I feel like is the Oilers," said Briggs. "They get the big start and then you're playing catchup the whole time. You push hard in the middle, so you battle and go back and forth, and that looks good, but you're already eight points behind. It's just like the Oilers – they're down a goal or two right at the beginning, they battle and then things fall away at the end.
"It's hard to play from behind all the time. Our number one thing is trying to build confidence. It's hard to build confidence when you're behind all the time, playing catchup. You're making mistakes."
MacEwan was down to just 11 healthy players for the weekend road trip to Calgary and played two new starters, including one – rookie left-side Arden Butler – who was in a new position (right side) for the first time. And rookie Madison Hoppus saw the first start of her Canada West career on the left side.
"We just played a little timid, a little scared," said Briggs. "Being undermanned, you can't change, so kids have to fight and work through it. I'm OK with that. They said all the right things. But when it's serve, serve-receive that beats you, that's under your control.
"We'll be better tomorrow."
The teams will meet again on Saturday in Calgary (7 p.m., Canada West TV presented by Co-op).
