Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – The MacEwan Griffins may have had to travel all the way to San Diego to get a look at the Saskatchewan Huskies, but they couldn't be more familiar with them now.
Playing U of S twice in exhibition games during a trip to California over the semester break, the Griffins will now travel to Saskatoon for official Canada West matches against the Huskies on Friday and Saturday (6 p.m., both games, Canada West TV).
"It's a team we're familiar with now after spending the week with them," said Griffins head coach Ken Briggs. "We've always had good matches against them. It's a tough gym to play in, but we're looking forward to the matchup."
Despite an 0-12 record that has them at the bottom of the Canada West standings, the Griffins will be going into the match with some confidence. Although Saskatchewan is 7-7 and occupy a playoff spot, MacEwan beat them twice in California – 2-0 in a best-of-three split squad match and 3-1 in a best-of-five match – and have the talent to do it again in league play.
Briggs pumps the brakes on reading too much into that, though.
"Any kind of exhibition, you have to put a little bit of caution in the fact that it's not necessarily every starter against every starter," he said. "What we did well against them is we passed well and we ran our middles well. They do the same thing.
"It's going to come down to which team does a better job on serve-receive because they use their middles like us," he continued. "If it's a good pass, you've got to stop our middles. And that opens up the outside as the match goes on. I think we're two very similar teams. I think we match up quite evenly."
In first-half matchups against common opponents, Saskatchewan beat Manitoba twice and split with Trinity Western, whereas MacEwan lost all four games to those teams, so the Huskies still have to be favoured going in.
The Griffins, however, have their backs against the wall. Briggs is hoping the California trip boosted the team as they try to cobble an improbable winning streak together – needing to come close to running the table in an easier second-half schedule to have any chance of catching a playoff spot. They're currently 12 points back of one with two games in hand.
"(The trip could be beneficial) especially for certain athletes if they gained a lot of confidence that week," he said. "They're pretty eager to move on here and start fresh. Just the fact we've had that extra weekend to rest helps because this is the time of year when you come back and there's a number of people with nagging ailments and sickness right now.
"It's really affected our team and I know their team's pretty run down, too. But everybody is coming out of the holidays. It's like September, getting back into the swing of things."
