Nov. 07, 2022: The Canadian women’s sitting volleyball team started Sunday off with a thrilling five-set battle against number-one ranked USA at the 2022 World ParaVolley Championships in Sarajevo.
In the end it was USA over Canada 3-2 (22-25, 25-22, 21-25, 25-12, 15-7).
“That was a tough five-set loss to the USA but I couldn’t be more proud of the way we showed up and competed,” said Canada’s women’s head coach Nicole Ban. “We served aggressively and were able to utilize our offense against the #1 ranked team in the world. We are continually showing our improvements and ability to play the game at a high level.”
The team had a quick turnaround to also face Iran in the evening on Sunday. Canada, currently ranked sixth in the world, came out strong against Iran (ranked 14), only to lose a tight third set and then win 3-1 (25-10, 25-14, 23-25, 25-13) to wrap up the first phase round-robin play.
The women’s team (2-1) finished second in its pool and play Hungary next on Nov. 08 at 9:15 am local time.
“We knew Iran was going to be a tough opponent,” team captain Danielle Ellis told World ParaVolley. “The last time we played them was about six years ago in China, so we didn’t have a lot to game plan on them, but we watched video from the last couple of days… We just went out there and played our game with some tough serves to put them in trouble and just stayed aggressive the whole game.”
On the men’s side on Sunday, Canada (ranked 13th in the world) fell to a powerful team from Brazil 0-3 (23-25, 14-25, 19-25).
Canada ended the round robin 1-2 in first phase.
On Monday, Canada had a tight contest with Ukraine. Ukraine won 3-1 (25-21, 25-23, 23-25, 26-24) and Canada now plays for placed 9-16 beginning on Tuesday.
“We showed today that we deserve to be a top-eight team,” said men’s head coach Jeff Smith. “We executed a precise game plan against the 7th place team in the world. Our goal was to showcase our talent and today’s match did just that. Despite coming out with the 3-1 loss our drive for success kept us on each match.
“We came here wanting to be top 10 and plan on doing so. Bryce Foster and Jose Rebelo were clutch from the service line for us today. Planning for our next match against Rwanda and looking forward to getting more wins under our belt.”
· All matches are streamed live on World ParaVolley’s YouTube channel.
· Click here for Canadian Team rosters: https://volleyball.ca/en/news/sitting-volleyball-teams-looking-ahead-to-world-championships
· The official tournament updates can be found here: https://www.worldparavolley.org/2022-world-paravolley-sitting-volleyball-world-championships/
Volleyball Canada Media Contact:
Jackie Skender
jskender@volleyball.ca
Mobile: 613-794-7676