Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — The MacEwan Griffins have some things to clean up after their regular-seasoning opening loss to the Trinity Western Spartans
It was a tough assignment out of the gate facing a national championship contender in TWU, but the Griffins had too many ebs and flows in first game of the season, falling in straight sets (25-14, 25-21, 25-14)
Danielle Jodoin and Alyshia Bryks led the Griffins with eight kills and four digs each, while Arden Butler recorded seven kills and four digs in the loss on Friday at the David Atkinson Gymnasium.
Faye Murray and Maryn Boldon had 12 kills each, while Erika Bang chipped in with eight for the Spartans in the victory.
"We weren't consistent at a high enough level tonight. We were at times, and then it's just very hard all the way through the match when teams are technically really good," said Griffins head coach Chris Wandler.
"We didn't terminate the ball enough, and we weren't aggressive enough."
The opening set went back-and-forth in the early going as Jodoin's kill made it an 8-8 game, but TWU went on a 7-0 run to break it open. A block from setter Payton Shimoda, who recorded 20 assists in the loss to move past Kylie Schubert into second all-time with 1,620 career assists, stopped the bleeding momentarily, but TWU was able to go on another 6-0 run to be in cruise control in the first set.
"This is a really good team, they're one of the best in the country, and it exposes some things when you're not consistently in tune yet. We're a work-in-progress for sure," said Wandler.
"This isn't the finished product we're going to be next week or in February. There were a lot of good lessons to learn from tonight."
The Griffins had a much stronger second set, especially offensively, as they only made one attack error, and held a .310 kill percentage, up from .097 the set before.
The Griffins took their first lead at 7-6 on a block from Kara Frith and would tie the set at 11-11, and held their own against the high-powered Spartans.
An Arden Butler kill made it 24-21, but they couldn't quite close the gap.
The third set unravelled right from the start for MacEwan falling behind as much as 11-2, but TWU had their game rolling at a different level than what the Griffins showed in the third set
"There's lots of scenes of being a team that is capable of doing this at a high level, and then we reverted back to some things that we're trying to get rid of. It's a matter of consistency and getting better at some things and taking some ownership and personal accountability," said Wandler.
MacEwan was forced to generate much of their offence to the outside, as they had a tough time generating much through the middle because of standout Spartan Kaylee Plouffe, who recorded six kills in the win and was an absolute force defensively.
"Kaylee Plouffe is from Jasper Place in Edmonton, and she is one of the best middles in the country. She got a chance to play some international volleyball with Team Canada this summer, and you can see why. She's physical, she's aggressive, she's got that mindset that you can't stop me," said Wandler.
"We can learn a lot from her. We have some girls that can aspire to be like that for sure."
QUICK HITS: The Griffins have some new faces taking on some bigger roles with the team this season, and Wandler was pleased with some of their efforts.
"I thought Alysha (Bryks) was great. She was a flat out gamer, and Dani (Jodoin) tried really hard. She got a little tentative at times, but overall, she played pretty good tonight," said Wandler.
Second-year transfer Evangeline Zeyha recorded two kills in her Canada West debut.
The Griffins will close out their weekend series against Trinity Western on Saturday (3 p.m., David Atkinson Gym, Canada West TV).
