Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – The crowd was pumped up and the Griffins' bench was jumping around as MacEwan' men's volleyball team kicked off its home opener with a 27-25 first set win over cross-town rival Alberta on Saturday night.
And then the wheels fell off as Alberta – the defending USPORTS silver medalists – cruised to a 3-1 victory (25-27, 25-15, 25-21, 25-16) to improve to 1-0 in the Canada West standings.
It was almost as if the 0-3 Griffins climbed partway up the mountain, planted the flag on a ledge and took a lunch break.
"It was a matter of not being able to stop any of their guys," said MacEwan head coach Brad Poplawski, whose squad was bogged down by multiple errors. "We didn't follow our system, which is very disappointing. This far into the season, guys are still not doing the things they're supposed to do and not doing it enough.
"At this level, you've got to do the right thing all the time," he added. "It's not a some-of-the-time thing and right now we're a some-of-the-time team where we do things right some of the time. And the results are bearing that out – losing in four every night because we're a some-of-the-time team."
It's the third time the Griffins have lost in four this season, also dropping two at Thompson Rivers University by the same score.
MacEwan trailed the first set 23-19 but engineered a thrilling 5-0 rally to earn their first of three match points. They closed it out on Taryq Sani's attack error and looked poised to make a run for the upset.
But Sani had other plans, holding serve for the majority of an 11-1 run in the middle of the second set, kicking off an unstoppable wave of momentum for Alberta. The second-year outside hitter finished with 20 kills to lead the Golden Bears to victory.
"I think that was a really good wakeup call for us," said Alberta associate coach Brock Davidiuk. "We can't take for granted anything in this conference. There's so many really good teams. I think that was maybe a little young on our part, a little immature. I just think we could have been more prepared. It just felt a little scrambled and not just the first set. There were other times in the match where we just let our play slip because maybe lack of focus.
"We want to hold ourselves to a higher standard to be better than that," he added. "There's some understanding that it's early in the season, but for us that's not really an excuse we want to use. We demand a lot from these guys and I think they want to be really good."
MacEwan hung in the third set for a while, but the Bears were better down the stretch, sealing a 25-21 win when Kai Hesthammer's back-row kill attempt sailed wide.
Again, the Griffins hung with the Bears for much of the early part of the fourth set, trailing only 16-12 at the technical timeout. But they got waxed from there as Alberta went on a 7-2 run and then sealed the match on Jackson Kennedy's kill off the block.
Kennedy finished second on the Bears with 16 kills.
"I think we had some ups and downs," said Davidiuk. "We were pretty inconsistent. That's partially what happens early in the season, but for us we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I thought there were some good individual performances.
"There was a lot of information gathered for us on our side," he added. "Obviously we scout them, but we need to gather information on our side in-game and there's a lot of stuff from tonight's game that we need to work on."
Hesthammer and freshman Ryan Zachary each had 11 kills to pace the Griffins, who will go back to the drawing board as they prepare for Sunday's rematch with Alberta (5:30 p.m., Saville Centre).
There was a time when they might have been satisfied taking a set off powerhouse Alberta, but those days have passed.
"My intent with this program is to not be happy with those things anymore," said Poplawski. "I think we've been in the league long enough that we can't just be excited about winning a set. The program's come too far to just be excited about those things anymore. I take a lot away from the match, but it's not a moral victory."