Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Focusing on getting better each night out, the MacEwan Griffins head into the stretch run of their regular season with a visit to the Manitoba Bisons this weekend.
It's an opponent that's very much in their area code of the standings, in fact they're tied with the Griffins at 2-12.
"I think as we approach the final six games of the year, our focus is on us – what we do well, how we can grow and how we can get better," said MacEwan head coach Katherine Adams. "I think that they're a similar team to us in a lot of ways. It will be a really great opportunity for us.
"It's a different team than we saw last weekend, a different team that we saw at the start of the semester. It's just a really great opportunity for us to see a different style again and go out and compete."
The Griffins and Bisons will do battle on Friday (5 p.m. MT) and Saturday (4 p.m. MT, both Canada West TV).
It's certainly a different challenge than last weekend when MacEwan met cross-town rival Alberta – a team that came in leading the conference in RPI – and lost both.
While Adams was generally satisfied with how they were setting up the offence, it was in the execution that things faltered as the Griffins shot just 19.7 per cent in Saturday's 77-47 defeat.
"Unfortunately, that's not something you can flip a switch and change overnight," she said. "It takes a lot of time to refine those skills. We're focused on generating and creating the best shots possible for the personnel on our team. As long as we're continuing to do that, the shots will eventually fall."
The positive is that their offensive generation is continuing to build in the second semester and for the first time in January, they don't have a bye week to disrupt that.
"I think that we've made a few changes," said Adams. :Seeing that just progress slowly over the last few weekends of play since we've been back from the break – playing back-to-back now, you don't have to wait quite so long to have another chance to go and put it into practice.
"I'm sure Manitoba's going to show us a bit of a different scheme than what we saw from Alberta. Being able to adapt and adjust depending on what they do and (how they use) their personnel, we're looking forward to that challenge."
