Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – The MacEwan Griffins men's soccer team is making up a game this weekend and hoping they can make up some ground at the same time.
Rescheduled from Sept. 29 due to a weather postponement, the Griffins (1-7-3) will play the Calgary Dinos (6-6-0) in Cowtown on Sunday (2:15 p.m., Canada West TV presented by Co-op).
MacEwan's playoff hopes are still alive, as of this moment, but there's a chance they won't be come game time.
Alberta (4-5-2) visits Mount Royal University (9-3-0) on Saturday and just needs a tie to eliminate their Edmonton rivals from the Canada West playoff race.
Should the Griffins get help with a MRU win, they'll head into Sunday's game needing to win their final three and waiting to see if Alberta loses their last two in order to pass them for the final post-season spot in the Prairie Division.
A daunting uphill climb to say the least. At least they're remaining positive about the task.
"The spirits are so good," said head coach Adam Loga. "We understand there are certain situations during this year that we need to take accountability for and also understand in sport there's things we can't control and they can't interfere with what we can.
"We're not looking for sympathy," he continued of a tough year where their talent was better than the record indicates. "As a group, we're strong and mature and we've grown. We're tough enough and mentally strong enough to endure it; it's just unfortunate when the game doesn't love you back all the time.
"So, we just live with it and hope it bodes well for us in the future."
MacEwan's lone win this season was against Calgary back in the Griffins' home opener on Sept. 7. They beat the Dinos 2-1 in a physical affair where MacEwan goalkeeper Seth Johnstone left with an injury and Calgary's head coach Brendan O'Connell was later ejected for arguing a play.
While hopefully all parties remain in the game this time, physical play should be par for the course again.
"(We expect) much the same," said Loga. "It's going to be on a grass pitch in a city that's had some snow, so it's probably going to be a bit rough of a surface. So, the ball's going to take some unusual bounces and be in the air bit more than we'd like as a side.
"We just have to match their work rate and physicality like we had to do the first time around and we should end up being OK."
