GUELPH, ON – The Guelph Gryphons men's volleyball team was due for a wake-up call.
 
And the Brock Badgers were happy to be the ones who dialed the number.
 
The No. 8-ranked Gryphs saw their impressive six-match winning streak come to an end on Saturday at the hands of the Badgers at the new Guelph Gryphons Athletics Centre. Brock took the best-of-five match 3-1, winning 22-25, 26-24, 25-21, 25-19.
 
"They took it to us. They just hammered us," Gryphs head coach Cal Wigston said of the Badgers, who improved to 2-3 on the season.
 
But he added that his team would "100 per cent" look at the result as something to remember going forward.
 
"My assistant coach just said, this was probably the best thing that could have happened to us, was to get beat like this," he said. "We've just got to dig down and see what can happen.
 
"As I tell my guys, 'When adversity hits, who are you? What are you going to do?' We've got to figure out a way to get better, and get better in a hurry."
 
The match was Guelph's first in its new home, and it started off not too badly as the Gryphs won the first set. But the resilient Badgers controlled most of the rest of the match.
 
It was a far cry from the Gryphs' last match before the holiday break, when they travelled to St. Catharines and picked up their sixth straight win by defeating the Badgers in relatively easy fashion.
 
"We missed some serves early, and when you miss serves early, you lose a little confidence," said Gryphs captain Kyle Richards, a fifth-year libero from London, ON. "And as soon as you lose confidence, you start putting in some easy balls, and they take advantage.
 
"That's a good team. We've got to give them more credit. We didn't give them enough credit from the start, they came out strong today, and they had our number."
 
Second-year left side Jared Harris led the Gryphs with 14 kills and added six digs. Fourth-year left side Joshua Green had nine kills and a game-high 10 digs. Third-year middle blocker Kendrick Kerr contributed 10 kills while third-year setter Samuel Kloke led all players with 40 assists.
 
Neither Wigston nor Richards wanted to use rust or nerves as an excuse for the loss, with the Gryphs moving into a brand new gym after not having played a match in six weeks.
 
"Being in the facility is phenomenal. It's just an amazing place," Wigston said. "We've just got to get used to this place, and play a whole lot better."
 
"We come from a smaller gym with a tighter ceiling, somewhere that we're used to," Richards said. "But we've been in here for a good week-and-a-half, and we had a few exhibitions in here. No excuses.
 
"But we're going to learn from it. I think it was a good wake-up call. We're a group of young guys, and we're going to have to prove how resilient we are. I'm confident that we'll bounce back strong. We've got a bright future."
 
A win on Saturday would have leapfrogged the Gryphs past the McMaster Marauders into first place in the OUA West Division. Instead, they remain in second place with a 6-2 record, while the Badgers sit in fifth.
 
Wigston said he's looking for more consistency from his team next Saturday when the undefeated Marauders come to visit. They're ranked No. 2 in the country and are sure to give the Gryphs a tough challenge.
 
"They're a fantastic team, they're playing really well," he said. "They serve hard, they pass well, and we've just got to be better all around."