Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — While the MacEwan Griffins are doing a lot of great things in their men's volleyball matches, battling right to the end, they can't seem to put it all together at the right time.
It happened again on Friday night as the Griffins fell in straight sets (25,23, 25-15, 25-23) to the Brandon Bobcats at the David Atkinson Gym.
Mitchel Gorman led MacEwan with 10 kills, seven digs and one block, while Aidan McLennan and Jonah Karsten chipped in with seven kills each as the Griffins fell to 0-7 this season.
Liam Pauls led Brandon with 11 kills and four digs in the win as Brandon improved to 4-3.
"I think we're doing some good things. We talk about earning the right to win the set, so we have to be with a team right up to 20, and then after 20, we have to take those opportunities because we've earned them," said Griffins setter Alexander Lyndon.
"I think we tighten up physically and mentally (late in sets) and we kind of go back to some old habits. We go away from the things that we're working to get us away from the set. It's a skill, we have to learn how to close out a set, it's something we struggle with a little bit."
The Griffins fell behind early and clawed their way back into the opening set, but while they closed the gap, they weren't able to pull ahead and snag that set win.
In the second set, the Bobcats dominated right from the opening point. They flew out to a 15-9 lead, and the Griffins didn't show much push back in the second-set loss.
MacEwan did come out strong in the third set. They took a 4-1 lead off a kill from Gorman, and later held a 9-6 lead off a nice setter's dump shot from Lyndon, but Brandon found a way to always stay in the rear-view mirror and once they took a 20-19 lead, the Griffins fought hard right to the bitter end, but couldn't pull it out.
"The biggest thing with those is that mistakes are part of the game and you have to let them go. If you miss a dig or a serve, you have to go to the next serve, otherwise the errors are just going to keep coming back," said McLennan.
"We did a good job of that in the first and third sets of not letting those errors compound which is good improvement from the team."
The Griffins have battled the injury bug all season long, and while it's been tough to battle through, it's given opportunities for younger players to step up, and McLennan came up with the best game of his career so far.
"It felt really good. I'm actually just coming back from being sick. I was sick all week, so I was really happy I could do that. I just went in and just wanted to do my job, be loud on the court and put some balls away and just try to help my team as best I could," said McLennan.
While the losses have strung together in this early portion of the season, the Griffins feel that being forced to play some younger players more due to injury and sickness, will only benefit the program, moving forward.
They can build off these tough moments as the season progresses.
"Guys do a good job of adjusting, and that's part of the fun of being a setter is finding ways to get them to score. It's nice to be able to have all those different options, but it's a challenge to build some rhythm if you haven't played with guys a lot, but we're doing a good job of getting guys prepared," said Lyndon.
"It's a long season, 24 games. It's not enough to just have seven, eight or nine guys, we really need depth. As hard as it is to have guys out hurt and sick, it's good to get some guys on the court and get some experience and we have more well-rounded guys and more experience for the youth, and that just helps the program, and the guys are doing a real good job of taking on that role."
MacEwan will finish off their weekend series with Brandon on Saturday (4:30 p.m., David Atkinson Gym, Canada West TV).
