Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — Mistakes happen in volleyball - it's part of the game - but the MacEwan Griffins will be kicking themselves after their performance against the University of Fraser Valley Cascades.
After a real rough opening set, the Griffins battled UFV right down to the wire, but lost in straight sets (25-12, 25-21, 25-23) Friday night at the David Atkinson gymnasium.
Mariah Bereziuk led the Griffins with 14 kills and 11 digs, while Emma Brooks recorded nine kills in the loss for MacEwan.
Lauren and Gabrielle Attieh led the Cascades with 15 and 12 kills respectively, while also recording 10 digs each.
The loss drops MacEwan to 2-13 this season, while UFV improves to 10-5 this season.
"The girls are going to be disappointed. They're going to look at this game as us against us instead of us against them," said Griffins interim head coach Dusty Freimark.
"It came down to too many self-inflicted mistakes and our tightness and some of our choices."
Everything that could go wrong went wrong for the Griffins in the opening set as they fell behind 7-0 as Zoe Arca recorded three service aces.
MacEwan chipped away, and were able to cut the Cascades lead to 10-5 after some great hustle from Danielle Jodoin to dig a ball way out of bounds, that led to a kill from Bereziuk, but the Griffins were out of sync in the first set and were never really in it from the get-go.
"I'm not sure if we had a little bit of Manitoba left in us (from last weekend), because that's how we finished there, is how we started," said Freimark.
Sometimes when you get punched in the mouth like MacEwan did in the opening set, it can set the tone and they can't recover, but the Griffins responded in a big way, despite dropping the last two sets.
They went toe-to-toe with the Cascades, who came into this weekend ranked No.5 in the country and showed that they won't back down.
In the second set, the Griffins clawed their way back after another slow start, but Megan Foxcroft showed great hustle to get to a ball out of bounds and keep it in play. Moments later Bereziuk earned a big block for the point to cut the Cascades lead to 11-9.
The Griffins were within striking distance the entire second set, but just couldn't get on a rally to close out the set against UFV.
"I think a lot of our players stepped up. I thought Emma (Brooks) stepped up and (Krawec) stepped up. I think Mariah (Bereziuk) stepped up. Renee (Jodoin) made some good choices (as setter) and Megan (Foxcroft) is always a leader," said Freimark.
Dana Dunbar goes up for an attack against UFV on Friday (Eduardo Perez photo).
In the third set, the Griffins came out much stronger and didn't give up a big lead to start. MacEwan took a 10-9 lead and then continued to push as Brooks and Bereziuk recorded kills to make it 13-10.
Another kill from Brooks made it 15-12, and the Griffins found some momentum they were searching for.
After a UFV timeout, the Cascades came back to tie it at 17-17, but MacEwan didn't back down as they continued to battle, regaining the lead at 20-19.
UFV regained the lead at 22-21, but another kill from Bereziuk made it 23-22, and then a block from Sarah McGee made it 24-23, but the Griffins just couldn't pull out the set win.
"I've always been proud of this group, even if we're not getting the wins that we've wanted. They're here and they want to test themselves and we're getting tested, but we still have some growing to do," said Freimark.
"It comes down to belief right now. It's hard when you're not seeing the results in the win column, but there have been little wins, we just need a little more experience executing and being in these situations."
Despite the loss, the Griffins showed in the last two sets that they can compete with one of the top teams in the country, they just have to figure out a way to clean up their mistakes that are coming back to bite them right now.
"We have a lot of resiliency in our group, and they figured it out and worked through it, and nobody quit," said Freimark.
"The ranking just came out that they're No.5 in U Sports, and we were right there with them, which, I expected us to be, we just have to find a way to minimize our errors."
MacEwan and UFV will close out their weekend series tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. (David Atkinson Gym, Canada West TV).
