Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — After the MacEwan Griffins let the Brandon Bobcats hang around a little too much in their four-set win on Friday, they weren't going to have any part of letting that happen again in the rematch.
MacEwan dominated from start to finish in a straight sets win (25-17, 25-20, 25-11) Saturday afternoon at the David Atkinson Gym.
Mariah Bereziuk led the Griffins with 10 kills, six digs and four aces, while Alyshia Bryks added nine kills, four digs and two aces in the victory as MacEwan improves to 5-3 this season.
Nerissa Dyer and Avery Burgar led Brandon with six kills each in the loss for the Bobcats who fall to 0-8.
"We were dialled in more of what to expect from Brandon today and that really set the tone of how we approached the match," said Griffins head coach Chris Wandler.
"We served the ball a heck of a lot better than what we did in that first set last night and we were just relentless. We didn't let too many downs let us down and we slowly started to stack good plays on top of one another which eventually got us a great deal of momentum in the match."
MacEwan jumped on Brandon right from the opening serve. In the opening set, the Bobcats were able to keep it close, but once Bryks got a kill that gave the Griffins a 16-15 lead, the Griffins went on a 10-2 run to close out the set.
Just how dominant was MacEwan in the rematch?
Brandon held the lead on just four occasions over the entire three sets.
MacEwan had all kinds of success at the serving line once again. After getting 10 service aces on Friday night, they got 10 more on Saturday. Bereziuk led with four aces, while McGee and Bryks each had two with Jodoin and Madison Hoppus producing one apiece.
"We don't normally serve that good. That was a really good job of our servers putting the ball in really good spots," said Wandler.
"Maybe it was a bit of Brandon getting inside themselves, too, but for the most part we put them into some really tough situations and when you're up against a strong serving team, it can crack you a little bit."
The Griffins controlled the second set from start to finish, never giving up the lead. After a nice tip from Bryks made it 20-17, MacEwan closed out the set strong after a nice tip from Sarah McGee and a kill from Bereziuk.
In the third set, MacEwan led 6-5, and then went on a massive 16-2 run, highlighted by four aces, including back-to-back aces from Bryks. MacEwan had four aces in the third set alone.
The Griffins hit the ball efficiently from the attacking line, and really spread the offence around, giving Brandon no chance to zero in on one or two specific hitters to defend.
"That's due to (setter) Payton (Shimoda). It's all her doing. She puts her hitters in really good spots, and they capitalize. Sarah (McGee) only had one error, and so did Alyshia, and Kara had eight kills and Dani (Danielle Jodoin) chipped in with six," said Wandler.
"It was a really impressive job on Payton's part. They should be buying her coffee all week."
Defensively, the Griffins got a lot better touches on the ball. They finished with seven blocks, and they were really able to take away the strong hitting ability of Dyer, who is one of the Bobcats best attackers.
"It was a really fun game to play. I thought it was a big serving game for us. Ten aces as a team is a big number and I think that team brought out our aggression in hitting and serving," said Danielle Jodoin.
"We talked a lot about rising to our level, and I felt that happened, especially in the third set. We really worked up to be the best we could be, and not worry about anything else."
MacEwan will host the Regina Cougars on Nov. 24-25, before wrapping up the first semester of play the following weekend in Calgary against the Mount Royal Cougars.
