Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
WINNIPEG, Man. – Their playoff push temporarily derailed in January, the Griffins women's volleyball team steered their season back onto the tracks with a huge 3-1 win over the Winnipeg Wesmen on Friday night.
The 26-24, 25-17, 20-25, 25-20 victory snaps a four-game losing streak and pushes their record to 10-7, solidly in sixth place in Canada West.
It also stymied the rise of the Wesmen, who were among a pack of teams gaining on the Griffins during their dry spell, dropping them to 6-9 and into the eighth and final post-season spot.
"The feeling's really positive, obviously," said head coach Chris Wandler of the mood in the room. "To come in against a really good Winnipeg team and beat them in their own gym, that's really positive.
"I think for the most part, we just talked about getting back playing our style of volleyball – controlling the ball, possessing the ball, and just making better decisions with the ball in attacking. That was the difference in the match tonight."
MacEwan had steamed out to a 9-3 record at Christmas on the heels of six-straight wins to close the first semester, but their roll came chugging to a halt in the new year as back-to-back weekend sweeps befell them at the hands of Manitoba and Thompson Rivers.
They went back to the fundamentals in practice this past week, though, and it paid off.
"They were just not trying to do too much," said Wandler of their success Friday. "Winning a volleyball game is about making a lot of really good plays repeatable and not making a bunch of perfect plays. That's what we did tonight.
"We just played really solid foundational volleyball."
W��| FINAL@MacEwanU 3@Wesmenathletics 1
— MacEwan Griffins (@MacEwanGriffins) January 20, 2024
(26-24, 25-17, 20-25, 25-20)
Sarah McGee steps around for a huge kill late in Set 4 as the Griffins close this one out with a huge win to end a four-game losing streak. Stay tuned for a recap.#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/q2XHWcgTI6
Mariah Bereziuk led the Griffins with 15 kills, Arden Butler had 11 and Sarah McGee recorded eight kills, three aces and three blocks. Wandler noted it was Payton Shimoda's 37 assists and Bronwyn Ettinger's 14 digs that really set the tone for the night.
"Payton did a marvelous job distributing the ball and putting them in really good spots to put away the ball," he said. "I thought Bronwyn was just on fire on defence. She really lit it up and really controlled that first contact. Before it even gets to the kill piece, it's those first two contacts from Bronwyn and Payton."
Winnipeg got 16 kills from Jaya Dzikowicz and 14 from Brooke Duncalfe, while Taylor Cangemi dug 21 balls.
W��| UPDATE
— MacEwan Griffins (@MacEwanGriffins) January 20, 2024
Alyshia Bryks goes off the block and out to seal Set 2 for the Griffins against @Wesmenathletics.
The match is heading into the fourth set with @MacEwanU up 2-1 (26-24, 25-17, 20-25).#GriffNation@CanadaWest pic.twitter.com/GypZrxsao7
MacEwan's turnaround was also keyed by their play from the service line as they manufactured 11 aces to only nine serving errors. Madison Hoppus and McGee each had three of those.
"I think our serve game was on mark today," said Wandler. "We did a better job controlling our serve. We were on the positive side of the ace to error ratio, so that was pretty cool.
"That puts in double digits for wins, so that's pretty important moving forward."
It's the fourth time since MacEwan joined Canada West in 2014 that the Griffins have had double digit wins and the first since 2019-20, the last time they qualified for the playoffs.
They'll meet Winnipeg again on Saturday (5:45 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).
