Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

SASKATOON, Sask. – When it rains, it pours.

Already without captain and top player Jefferson Morrow – who didn't make the trip due to an injury – the short-handed MacEwan Griffins then lost starting setter Alexander Lyndon after he was hit in the face by a ball in the first set on Friday night.

While he returned to the game in Set 2 after some repairs, momentum was squarely in the Saskatchewan Huskies' favour and they rolled to the finish line, handing the Griffins a straight-sets defeat in Canada West men's volleyball action (25-16, 25-17, 25-23).

"They're just a good team," said MacEwan head coach Brad Poplawski. "They beat U of A last week and they're very strong. They're big, they're physical and they do a lot of stuff well. They stressed a lot of parts of our game."

After the Griffins started slowly in Set 1, going down 4-0, they clawed back to take an 8-6 lead before Lyndon's injury seemed to take some wind out of their sails.

"Mason (Natras) came off the bench and did some good stuff setting, but it's kind of a momentum point when you take a ball that hard," said Poplawski. "They kind of rode that momentum a little bit. We were playing with them for a bit and then just got stuck in one rotation."

Set 2 was a repeat where the Griffins got stuck in a tough rotation and couldn't get out of the washing machine.

Finally, in Set 3, MacEwan showed glimpses of being able to go toe-to-toe with the Huskies, taking a 20-18 lead before faltering on the clutch points to lose by two.

"We just didn't get the side out we needed," said Poplawski. "We showed good fight in the third. I thought our response to things was pretty good today. Sometimes this year, we've maybe let a call go against us and we get down on ourselves and it compounds into two or three errors. I thought today when they were going on runs, we weren't shutting down. We were still communicating and trying. 

"They're a big blocking team and we don't see a block like that all the time in training, so we just have to recalibrate our attack and learn how to score against teams like that."

Nolan Pearce and Alexei Walisser shared the Griffins' lead in kills with six apiece.

Saskatchewan star Dylan Mortensen was the best player on the court, though, with 19 kills, while Noah Opseth had 34 assists for the Huskies.

Daylan Andison and Seth Birkholz got more playing time due to some of MacEwan's injuries and showed flashes of their potential in working all three sets for the Griffins.

"Both guys came in against a strong team and at times it was like 'oh, we've got to learn from that' and other times it was like 'oh, that's really good,' " said Poplawski. 

"I want them to focus on those positives and I want them to keep building on that tomorrow and the rest of the season."

With the result, MacEwan falls to 0-3 in the Canada West standings, while Saskatchewan is now 2-1. The teams will meet again on Saturday in Saskatoon (3 p.m., Canada West TV).