Canada moves on to semi-finals of Pan Am Cup men’s volleyball tournament
Canada has been going strong at the Pan Am Cup men’s volleyball tournament. After an impressive clean sweep that the Canadian team made over the Dominican Republic on Wednesday to enter the quarter-finals round, it secured itself another win by defeating
Mexico on Thursday night.
The quarter-final was tougher than the previous match that Canada had played, as Mexico put up a good competition and were able to take the match to four thrilling sets. The first set of the match was lost by Canada but they made sure that the rest of the
three fell their way. The Mexicans were able to put up a challenge in the second set but their performance saw a downfall in the third and fourth sets.
By the time that the night was out, the final set scores stood at the following figures: 22-25, 25-21, 25-19 and 25-18.
The Canadian head coach, Glenn Hoag, made the following comments at the end of the match: “We just played catch-up volleyball in the first set and nearly caught them. We didn’t start Gavin because he has a bit of a sore knee, but we put him back in because
we really wanted to get to that semifinal. He really provides a lot on the attack and that got the flow going.”
Both the attack as well as the defense of the Canadian team was working in sync to keep the pressure on Mexico. All through the match, Mexico stayed on its heels in order to keep up with the skillful play of the Canadian team. Some members of the Canadian
team played well and advanced their teams cause and included Gavin Schmitt, Fred Winters and John Gordon Perrin. Schmitt led his team by securing the highest number of points at 21. Winters helped by adding 14 points of his own while Perrin was able to make
his presence felt by contributing 12 points.
On the Mexican side, Daniel Vargas and Marco Macias added to their team’s fighting spirit. Both the players were able to post an equal number of 11 points each for their team.
According to the Mexican head coach, Jorge Azair, the key element that was lacking in his team was blocking, which was being well executed on the Canadian side and contributed to their eventual win.
The Canadian team is now headed towards the semi-final that is scheduled to be played on Friday. The team that Canada will have to overcome in order to secure themselves a ticket into the finals is Brazil. The other contestant for the final is not determined
yet but it will either be the United States or Puerto Rico, both of whom will meet in the other semi-final match.
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