Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
VANCOUVER, B.C. – A week after his first action since returning from injury knocked some rust off, Daylan Laszlo looked poised and confident as he led the Griffins men’s volleyball team against the powerhouse UBC Thunderbirds.
Finishing with 10 kills, four digs and two blocks, the dynamic second-year left side put in a quality effort for the Griffins in a 3-0 loss to U SPORTS No. 1 UBC (25-19, 25-15, 25-16).
“Compared to last week, I thought him, Ethan (Pavone) and Sol (Solomon Flindall) did a much better job passing,” said Griffins head coach Brad Poplawski. “I thought it started from there.
“At times, we did a really good job getting the job to Kenny (Ang) so he could run an offence. (Daylan) was obviously coming off a pretty serious injury last semester, so last weekend was his first weekend back and you could just see the progression from last week – more comfortable on his arm swing, more comfortable on the pipe.
“I thought him and Kenny connected on a couple really good balls. For him to get to double digits in kills is good. We hope he can keep building on today’s performance because he was really good for us.”
At times, the Griffins pushed UBC, who have national championship aspirations after moving to 12-1 with the victory, dropping the Griffins to 0-13.
In the first set, MacEwan was tied 18-18 before the T-Birds went on a 7-1 run to close it out.
Set 2 was within a couple points halfway through, but this time UBC went on a 7-2 run to reach 25.
And in Set 3, the Griffins led 11-9 but were outscored 16-5 from there.
“It was unfortunate that we couldn’t do the things the rest of that (first) set that had gotten us to that point, but I think overall, they’re the number one team in the country – a big physical team with national team athletes at every position,” said Poplawski. “And our guys, at times, very much belonged out there.
“Obviously, we’ve had a tough year, but I thought there was a lot of good things. It still just comes back to that repeatability like I always say – the ability to do things not just once, but two, three, four. I thought our good stuff was quite good. We just need to get rid of some of the inconsistencies in our game.”
Dawson Pratt had a match-high 11 kills for UBC, while Alex Borowski had eight kills and two aces and Danny Cravioto-Ross recorded five kills, two aces and four blocks.
Beside Laszlo’s effort, MacEwan got 13 assists and six digs from Ang, while libero Flindall had seven digs. Middle Seth Birkholz, just returning from injury, was the only other Griffins attacker besides Laszlo’s .174 with positive efficiency numbers after netting two kills on a .143. Rookie Fabian Breitenbach also returned from injury, managing just one kill.
“We have to find a way to get them more involved offensively – only three kills between them,” said Poplawski. “I thought there were times they could have been more involved in the offence, but I thought from the service line and blocking, they both brought some good things tonight.”
The teams will meet again on Saturday (7 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).