June 01, 2021: Canada’s women’s team beat China for its first-ever Volleyball Nations League win today in Rimini, Italy.
China, a world leader in women’s volleyball, was defeated by Canada 2-3 (22-25, 25-21, 17-25, 25-15, 12-15). Canada rebounded after a five-set loss to another strong team, Turkey, yesterday 2-3 (23-25, 25-19, 25-22, 23-25, 12-15).
“It’s surreal. Our team was fighting all the way through… yesterday we lost a five-setter, but today we knew how to come back and fight as a team,” said Canadian opposite Andrea Mitrovic, in a post-match interview.
Kiera Van Ryk (Surrey, BC) was again Canada’s leading scorer with a match-topping 25 points; Mitrovic (Mississauga, ON) contributed 17 points. Changning Zhang, China’s team captain and a member of the 2016 Olympic gold medal squad, was that team’s top scorer with 22.
“This team has shown they have the character to battle with the best, which is exciting,” said Canada’s Head Coach Shannon Winzer. “We said in the beginning that we wanted to improve on every game throughout VNL and after losing a tough game against Turkey yesterday in five sets, today we did exactly that and were able to close out the fifth set against China. Today feels good, it’s nice to get our first win in a tough competition.”
Canada was strong in its serving and passing and was especially dominant in blocking (14-6) today.
“Everyone did their jobs and when things got away from us momentarily, we were able to come back to the game plan and settle ourselves to be able to execute. A few games ago that wasn’t the case, so the rate at which this group is improving and learning is impressive.”
This is the women’s second week of VNL action. The Canadians face Germany at 7 am EDT tomorrow. Click here for a summary of week one. The men’s team resumes VNL action on June 3 against Iran.
Tournament web site : https://en.volleyballworld.com/volleyball/competitions/vnl-2021/
Volleyball Canada media contact:
Jackie Skender
Mobile: 613.794.7676
