The Winnipeg Wesmen were on their way to a breezy first-set win until it all went south. 

The Wesmen women's volleyball team gave up a six-point run late in the first set to surrender a significant lead and ultimately dropped a 3-1 (26-24, 25-17, 20-25, 25-20) Canada West conference match to the MacEwan Griffins Friday night at the Duckworth Centre. 

The Wesmen fell to 6-9 and hold a tenuous grasp on the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference. MacEwan snapped a four-match losing streak and improved to 10-7.

Winnipeg was cruising early in the first set, tearing off six out of seven points to take a 6-5 lead and turn it into a 12-6 advantage. The Wesmen would lead by as many as seven in that first set — 16-9 — and maintained a 20-15 edge getting into the crucial points.

That's when MacEwan took off, tying it at 20 and then going ahead by one on back-to-back Wesmen attack errors. 

After tying it at 21-21, the Wesmen then watched the Griffins score three straight to get to set point. Winnipeg's fight wasn't for naught, though, as the Wesmen turned up a three-point run of their own to equal things again at 24. A kill from Mariah Bereziuk and a Brooke Duncalfe error sealed the set.

And the Wesmen seemed to struggle to recover from there. 

Despite scoring three straight to start the second set, the Wesmen quickly found themselves down 14-7 following a five-point MacEwan run. 

Jaya Dzikowicz had a team-high 16 kills to lead Winnipeg, while Brooke Duncalfe had 14 and Selva Planincic 10. Christine Kolbuck had nine kills on 14 swings with just one error to hit .571.

Taylor Cangemi posted a season-high 21 digs, her fourth career match with 20-plus. 

Bereziuk finished with 15 kills and Arden Butler had 11. Bronwyn Ettinger had a team-high 14 digs. 

Winnipeg hit only .174 for the night while MacEwan attacked at .244, the 10th time in 11 matches the Griffins have hit at least .200. 

The two teams meet again Saturday at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are available at wesmen.ca/tickets.