Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
CALGARY – Baby steps must accompany any rebuilding project.
And you can throw morale victories in there, too.
The young MacEwan Griffins women's volleyball team was better on the opening night of their second weekend of Canada West action – a positive takeaway, even if the score ended up the same: another 3-0 loss, this time to the Calgary Dinos.
"This is what I'm prepared for every weekend – gradually learning," said MacEwan head coach Ken Briggs. "We took much bigger steps, took care of a few things from last weekend – I thought we served better. Our passing was a little erratic, but overall we had some solid performances."
After only reaching the 20-point mark once in a pair of straight-sets defeats to the Alberta Pandas last weekend, the Griffins at least crossed that threshold twice in three sets against Calgary on Friday, falling 25-19, 25-22, 25-21.
Now the next step to take is winning those close sets.
"We battled with them point for point, had a couple come from behinds, but once it got to 20, we just made those pressure mistakes," said Briggs. (Associate coach) Nicole (Ban) made a really good comment in our post-game meeting: 'how many times have we been to 20 or above?' In a small season, they've only got there three times.
"We're closer, we're better, but we're still going to make those pressure mistakes."
Erica Bolink led the Griffins with nine kills and a .368 hitting percentage.
"She did really well on the outside and had a nice kill efficiency," said Briggs. "We were a little more consistent from the service line, we were a little better getting our middles involved.
"Again, pressure changes everything. We had some good performances and did some solid things, so an improvement in a week."
The rematch goes Saturday (6:30 p.m., Canada West TV presented by Co-op) when the Griffins will hope to implement some lessons learned.
Said Briggs: "They have to reflect now, what did we do? Under pressure, what was I thinking? As we watch video and as they look at themselves, what caused that error? Was it my mindset? Was I thinking about the right things?
"We do a lot of prep and what's really been solid is there's been no surprises," he continued. "Nobody's come out and done something we didn't expect. Now it's just execution. And of course, at this time, we're not executing as consistently as we need to and you're going to hear that word all year."
