Bobcats fall in Gallacher’s first start

Grace Gallacher was ecstatic about the chance to start, but not about the way the Brandon University Bobcats started their home opener on Friday.

BU (0-3) fell behind early too often, losing 3-1 (25-14, 18-25, 25-16, 25-22) to the MacEwan University Griffins (1-2) in Canada West women’s volleyball action at the Healthy Living Centre.

Brandon head coach Kailan Robinson said the senior backup earned the start in practice this week.

“It was a little bit of everything. Alex (Roberge) had a rough week with her body, wasn’t practising much, just sore. Grace did well this week in practice, was doing the offensive things we want to see and is just a leader. She’s someone who people want to play with,” Robinson said.

“She has that fight, the competitive fire and people have fun around her, so we wanted to give it a try.”

The Surrey, B.C., native’s career-high in assists was seven going into the match. She put up 32 assists, two kills, two blocks, eight digs and an ace without missing from the service line.

Gallacher said her teammates made it easier to settle in.

“It was awesome, just hearing the bench and my team, how much they love me and support me, that means the world to me,” Gallacher said.

“The start of each set really showed how we would react. In the second set, the one that we won, we came out strong and attacking.

“We’ve just got to keep going and go hard right off the bat.”

The Bobcats were unable to put anything in play early, going down 4-0 before captain Cassidy Hauta cranked a kill in the middle of the court.

Maddy Shackleton picked up a few kills off the block to settle the Bobcats down, but they stayed down at least one the rest of the way.

BU took advantage of a trio of MacEwan errors to draw within one at 12-11, but gave it back on three straight mistakes soon after.

Down the stretch, MacEwan’s block defence was on the ball, snuffing out four Brandon attacks to leave the hosts with a negative hitting percentage in the opening set, and a 1-0 hole to climb out of.

Brandon started passing better in the second set, opening up middle blocker Alexa Parken for three kills to take an early lead.

With more attention on the middle attack, Gallacher was able to feed Steph Miller and Shackleton for a few kills to go up 9-5 and force a MacEwan timeout.

However, the Griffins regrouped and came back with four straight kills.

It was tied 16-16 before Miller scored, then rattled off a massive six-point serving run filled with Griffins errors and a sneaky Gallacher setter dump.

Shackleton tied the match 1-1 with her fifth kill of the set soon after.

“I love running the middles and I think that’s been our goal this year with all our three setters,” Gallacher said.

“Making Alexa succeed meant the world to me. That’s my goal for my own personal goals. I want everyone on the court, the bench, to succeed and everyone to feel and play their best.

“Establishing our middle gets everyone going … the front row of MacEwan was definitely on their toes and it gave us so much momentum.”

The third set started like the first, with MacEwan rattling off four points and Hauta breaking the run when Brandon made a good pass.

Soon after, a back-breaking string of predominantly Bobcat errors made it 13-4. BU’s biggest struggles of the night came with Gallacher stuck in the front row, and she didn’t return to the service line until BU was down 16-6.

BU kept pace for the next 10 points, until Gallacher rotated to the front again. This time, Robinson rolled out a double-sub, putting in setter Kaitlyn Couckuyt to serve and Georgia Johnson to attack.

The Bobcats cut the deficit to 22-16, but the Griffins pulled ahead 2-1 three points later.

Brandon burned the double sub much earlier in the fourth set, but gave up an ugly seven-point run to trail 13-6.

That could have spelled the end of the night, but the Bobcats dug deep — and dug everything — for the next eight points to narrow the gap to 14-13.

Eva Dooks served an ace off the bench to tie it at 15-15, 11 points.

But after BU pulled ahead 21-20, setter Ella Graves, the one who did all the damage from the service line early in the first few sets, strung together three more points to give the Griffins the last lead they needed.

Shackleton led the Bobcats with 14 kills and five errors, while Parken chipped in six and three.

Anna Von Krosigk led all scorers with 18 kills and five errors.

MacEwan had a .133 hitting percentage to Brandon’s .100.

The teams meet again today at 5 p.m. Robinson needs her group ready at 5 o’clock sharp this time, not 5:03.

“We struggled with them starting every set with a run or finding little ways to create runs if we were up. Not being able to stop runs was a big thing,” Robinson said.

“Other teams are ripping away at us, ripping away fearless, and we want to do that.”

QUICK HITS: The BU soccer teams are kicking off the post-season today. The men play the host Canadian Mennonite University Blazers in the semifinals at Winnipeg’s Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex at 11:30 a.m.

Led by Matheus Ruffini, who was named to the all-conference team on Friday, the Bobcats are the fourth seed in a rematch of last year’s final, which they lost to the Blazers in penalty kicks.

The second-ranked BU women had three all-conference selections: Jorja Hoad, Abby-Jo Wark and Laure Dizengremel.

They face the St. Boniface Les Rouges at Providence in Otterburne at 2:30 p.m.

The finals are on Sunday at noon (men) and 2:30 p.m. (women) at the same sites.

The Bobcat basketball teams visit the Manitoba Bisons on Sunday.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com