Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – In a match that lasted not long over an hour, the MacEwan Griffins made short work of the visiting University of Regina Cougars, winning their home opener in three-straight sets on Friday night at the David Atkinson Gym.
MacEwan cruised in the first and third sets and survived a tough second set battle to win 25-15, 27-25, 25-14 and improve to 1-2 on the young Canada West season. Regina is also 1-2 after the loss.
"It's pretty huge because it's kind of a unique one," said MacEwan head coach Ken Briggs alluding to the fact the night only featured a women's game.
"The home opener's big for us because we're on the road three of the first four weekends, so this is pretty important for us to come out and take control of our own gym."
The only time MacEwan didn't have control of the match was during an extra-point battle in Set 2 where the Cougars fought back from 22-19 and 24-22 deficits to make a battle out of it.
"We talked about learning from last weekend," said Briggs of falling to Mount Royal University twice. "We went extra points four or five times last weekend and it's just to remember we are in control of that when the ball's on our side."
Lauren Holmes led the Griffins with 13 kills on a .355 efficiency, adding six digs and an ace, while Hailey Cornelis, McKenna Stevenson and Carly Weber added seven kills each. Setter Kylie Schubert had 33 assists.
"We put them out of system a lot because of our serving," said Briggs. "We passed well. This was probably our best passing game. That put us in system a lot. The middles did their thing. The outsides – Lauren was our leading scorer. I always watch how many kills, but how many errors. She was like 13-2 or something like that. Those are the good things.
"I thought we were a little undisciplined at the beginning but lucky they were making mistakes," he added. "We stayed settled and there were some amazing digs. They needed that. They need that little bit of a confidence boost when they're in control they'll do fine."
Regina didn't have enough players clicking as most of their offence ran through outside hitter Britt Davis, who had 13 kills and was one of only two Cougars players in positive numbers for hitting efficiency.
"I think we need to do a better job with our blocking and just putting the ball away more," said head coach Melanie Sanford. "I think we had one attacker and we can't get it done with one attacker. We need a better balance there, which we have had before. That's something we'll probably try to focus on for tomorrow."
The teams will meet again on Saturday (5 p.m., David Atkinson Gym, Canada West TV presented by Co-op).
