Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
CALGARY – There were plenty of small victories for the MacEwan Griffins men's volleyball team on Friday night, but unfortunately the big one – winning the match – was not among them.
MacEwan fell in straight sets to the University of Calgary Dinos (25-21, 25-13, 29-27), dropping to 1-4 on the Canada West season. The Dinos improved to 4-1.
"It's obviously disappointing to lose, but we gave ourselves chances," said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski. "We were up 16-13 in the first, then just kind of let it slip away. The second set, we didn't play too great, but in the third we made one little change and we're up 23-21 and just didn't close it out unfortunately.
"I'm proud of the effort and I thought we followed the game plan for the most part. A big topic of conversation this whole week was our passing and I thought our passers did a much better job of stabilizing."
Second-year middle Noah Johnson was the most efficient Griffin, posting a .300 hitting percentage with five kills and five blocks.
Rookie Jefferson Morrow, among four first-years in the game at one point for the Griffins, led the team with seven kills.
"We had some young guys play," said Poplawski. "At one point, we had four first-years on the floor and that was something encouraging to see. Noah in the middle had one of his better games in his two years at MacEwan. There's a lot of little positives. Again, it's disappointing to not get the result."
Among the rookies to make an impact was Olamide Ajayi, who put a memorable play on tape.
"Ola came in in the third set and got a huge block," he said. "He blocked their fifth-year left side who's 6-8. That was just awesome to see and got the boys fired up.
"Stuff like that is nice. We've got to find a way to sustain. I think our high points are high, but it's how can we get out of our low points a little quicker and not let it become a run of three, four, five points. That's just been something that's plagued us the last few games."
The teams will meet in the rematch on Saturday (5:30 p.m., Canada West TV presented by Co-op).
