Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – A sign of a good team is how you respond after a tough loss, and the MacEwan Griffins women's volleyball team is ready to bounce back after their first loss of the season.
"We had a good week of practice. They realized that their effort wasn't good enough (on Saturday), and we've put that in the rear-view mirror," said Griffins head coach Chris Wandler.
"We reflect on it, but we don't dwell on it. That's the message that I've tried to get through from the start. We started to prepare for Fraser Valley as soon as we walked out of the dressing room on Saturday."
MacEwan (3-1) is coming off a weekend split against the Saskatchewan Huskies at home. Facing the Fraser Valley Cascades on the road will be a tough test for the Griffins (Friday, 8:45 p.m. MT and Saturday, 7:45 p.m. MT, both Canada West TV).
UFV (2-2) is ranked No. 7 in U SPORTS, but the Griffins are certainly up for the big early season challenge.
"They're a real solid team. They have a ton of depth. They have two outstanding left side hitters, and another on the right side," said Wandler.
"It's going to be a challenge for us to handle them, but we have to make sure our game is intact, and we dictate our speed and make sure our game plan is in place."
The Cascades have some serious "Sister Power" on their team. Gabrielle, Lauren and Talia Attieh are a dynamic trio that provide strong production for UFV and Gabrielle is the reigning Canada West Player of the Year.
All three are off to strong starts this season, as the trio sit 1-2-3 in totals kills for the Cascades (Lauren (46), Gabrielle (27) and Talia (25).
"We don't have the reigning Player of the Year, and we can't just rely on one specific person to lead the way. It must be a group effort," said Wandler.
"It must be a collective effort for us to pull through, not just this weekend, but every weekend."
One area the Griffins will certainly want to improve upon this weekend is their service game. They committed 12 serving errors that proved costly in their loss against Saskatchewan. MacEwan's service game has been quite strong through the first two weeks of the season, but it let them down last Saturday.
"Everything begins and ends with our serve and pass game. When we have a strong first contact, we can go in a direction that can go positive for us," said Wandler.
"Our focus is always our first contact. When teams can do that, we can play more efficiently, and we can put teams in distress that way."
One thing Wandler has stressed through his early tenure is to not dwell on the negatives. If they have a bad serving game, or a bad passing game, don't stress about it too much, otherwise it festers.
With that mindset, there were no extra serving drills enforced at practice this week.
"In practice we don't spend a lot of time on mistakes. We don't sit and analyze every mistake. You have to have the mindset of moving forward. If you reflect too much on the past, you'll never move forward," said Wandler.
"We've maintained a good routine in our gym, and we're ready to go against Fraser Valley this weekend."
