Morrow meshes with homegrown Huskies

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This article was published 19/03/2025 (212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Jefferson Morrow came to Canada, he was going to whoever would take him.

A few years later, he transferred to the Saskatchewan Huskies because he saw where they could take him.

Morrow just finished up his third season with Edmonton’s MacEwan Griffins when he connected with Sean McKay during the Huskies’ run to nationals in 2023. The young bench boss was eager to bring him on board as soon as possible.

Now the Australian left side is closing his career at the U Sports men’s volleyball championship in Brandon this weekend, finally hitting the stage he knew he wouldn’t reach without a change. The No. 5-seed Huskies face the Ontario University Athletics champion Queen’s Gaels on Friday at 8 p.m.

“Insane, it’s all I could ask for in my last year,” Morrow said.

“MacEwan was good, got playing time from the start so really good experience in the league. Sean has been a massive influence, and the whole coaching staff at U of S, everyone’s been supportive. Sean sets us up in the best way to succeed and I couldn’t ask for more.”

Morrow made a name for himself in Australia and wanted to play college ball in the United States. He connected with an agent who worked to land him a scholarship. They realized Canada might be a better fit and Morrow had a choice between MacEwan and Thompson Rivers in Kamloops, B.C. He didn’t know much about either and opted for the larger city.

He was a Day 1 starter in 2019, posting 104 kills in his rookie year, then 153 in 2021-22 and 249 the following year. His efficiency improved each season as well, but his team stayed among the worst in Canada West, not winning more than four matches in a regular season.

Morrow said his decision to seek greener pastures and uniforms was bigger than that, citing his financial situation as an international student.

“It wasn’t a quick decision, there was a lot of time spent in it with me and the athletic director at MacEwan,” Morrow said. “I had some personal reasons going on … also just team stuff going on and the athletic director was on board.

“The athletic director was honestly awesome, same with on the Sask side.”

Morrow appealed the standard redshirt season required of transfers, presented his case and left it in the hands of U Sports, who approved it and let him immediately take the court in Saskatoon in 2023.

“Honestly, if I wasn’t able to play, probably would have been pretty close to the end of my career,” he said.

Morrow’s numbers took a slight dip that season, but he’s up to 204 kills and a career-high .215 hitting percentage.

The six-foot-three left side’s impact on the Huskies, who went 14-6 to finish top-five in the conference for the third straight season, goes beyond his production.

“He’s in a lot of ways an unsung hero for us,” McKay said. “He holds guys accountable, keeps the energy high, he’s a good leader, one of our captains.”

“He’s not always the top kill-getter, sometimes the efficiency isn’t always there but his last four or five matches in the playoffs have been really impressive,” he added.

“He came here to get to a national championship and he’s really, really helped us accomplish that.”

HOMEGROWN CORPS

TEAM’S HEART AND SOUL

These Huskies not only have experience at nationals, a bunch of them have won a Canadian title.

Starting setter Noah Opseth, left side Isaiah Mamer, middle blocker Lucas Musschoot, libero Ethan Smith and backups Keegan Colleaux and Griffin Duncalfe won Canada Games gold with Team Saskatchewan in 2022.

Australian middle blocker Jacob Baird bolstered the lineup with a second-team all-star season, with veteran right side Emmett Graham leading the way.

The hometown boy had a fascinating rise from a redshirt year followed by the COVID-19 cancelled season, to sliding in as a rare left-handed left side hitter.

Now back at his regular position, he blossomed into a first-team all-star, finishing seventh in the nation with 3.81 kills per set and eighth with a .376 hitting percentage.

“That’s a testament to his hard work. The guy doesn’t complain, he just gets after it and has become, I think, one of the best front-row attackers in the league,” McKay said.

“He’s got a really good feel for the ball, good ability to adjust to any set, that’s why we can run him a little bit faster. Being a lefty … makes him really hard to block.”

The Huskies say they aren’t the most physical team but they certainly make up for it with sharp fundamentals and game planning. There were only two teams in Canada more efficient offensively, sitting at .298 in the regular season.

“We kill teams with consistency, good execution, and that execution has to be there,” McKay said. “We can’t get by on just our athleticism so if you’re having an off game, it really shows in the score and our performance.”

Such was the case in the Canada West bronze-medal match. The Huskies fell 3-1 in the semifinals to the top-ranked Winnipeg Wesmen, dropping into a heavyweight tilt for bronze and the last national berth with the UBC Thunderbirds.

The team that smashed the Brandon University Bobcats 3-0 twice one week earlier raced ahead 2-0 before Saskatchewan saved its season with three clutch set wins.

“At certain points in that match I didn’t know we were going to get the job done,” McKay said. “I believed we could, but obviously when you’re down 2-0 to a really good team it’s not all unicorns and rainbows.

“We knew what we had to do and in the first two sets, we really failed to do it. I wouldn’t even say we made the tactical adjustments but just made the execution adjustments, performed from the baseline a little bit better and that allowed us to grow into the rest.”

Saskatchewan faces a Queen’s team riding an OUA championship high on Friday, then either No. 1 Winnipeg or host Brandon on Saturday.

There’s nothing easy about playing either two conference champions or one and the host behind a rambunctious Healthy Living Centre crowd.

But the guys in green will be ready.

“It’s just our mentality. If you look on paper, everyone writes us off, a bunch of good players but maybe we’re undersized, maybe we aren’t as physical as certain teams. But we always have the mantra that we’re going to try and out-dog a team,” Morrow said.

“We’re going to out-dog, out-grind. We just want it more.”

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