MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina – Canada’s national men’s volleyball team produced one of the biggest victories in its history Thursday upsetting Olympic champion Russia in five sets in its opening match in the FIVB World League Final.
“I’m very happy with the win, it’s a big step for us to come here,’’ said Canada’s head coach Glenn Hoag of Sherbrooke, Que. ‘’Our program has evolved in the last six years and this is a great accomplishment.
‘’The guys are confident about competing against any team, they’re not scared of anybody, they have faith in the system we play with.’’
The Canadians overcame a 0-2 deficit in sets to take the match 20-25, 21-25, 25-23, 25-21, 15-11. To give an idea of the enormity of the upset, Canada is ranked 18th in the world and Russia second. The Russians were playing their 73rd World League Final match while Canada was playing its first.
“In the third and fourth sets they gave us opportunities, made more mistakes, they weren’t serving as hard,’’ said Canadian team captain Fred Winters of Victoria. ‘’The pressure was on them. They had to beat us. We just played great in the last three sets.’’
Gord Perrin of Creston, B.C., led the Canadian attack with 20 points, Gavin Schmitt of Saskatoon, who missed the last five matches due to a leg injury, added 13 and Winters chipped in 11.
Despite dropping the first two sets the Canadians seemed to be improving and by the end of the third Schmitt, Perrin and Winters gave as good as they got and soon the underdogs held a 22-20 lead. Russia successfully challenged a spike in to make it 22-21 but Schmitt was Canada’s go to man with a cross court spike before Winters finished a terrific rally with his own attack to seal Canada’s first ever set win against Russia in the modern scoring era.
“I wasn’t so happy with the way the guys played [at the start], we were overdoing things,’’ said Hoag. ‘’I just wanted them to play the way we practise, the way we’ve been playing lately. Russia is a great serving team and a very good attacking team so we needed to be very disciplined on our blocking and we were lacking discipline and we made errors early.’’
In the fourth, the oldest player at the World League Finals, Canadian libero Daniel Lewis, 37, of Oakville, Ont., along with Winters defended like demons at the back court and the Russians were unable to break down the Canadian block and Canada soon snatched a second set win after a Russian spike went disappointingly into the net.
In the fifth, Russia went up 7-3 but Canada just wasn’t going to give up. They slowly pulled it back to 7-7 thanks to blocks by Adam Simac of Ottawa, who also baffled the Russians all night with his floating serves, and Graham Vigrass of Calgary before some great serving from Rudy Verhoeff of Calgary put Russia under severe pressure.
An ace, a wide spike and a bad reception by Russia, and a Simac block gave Canada match point 14-10 on Verhoeff’s serve. Russia saved one match point before Joshua Howatson of Victoria blocked the final point for the historic celebrations to begin.
“I think Russia might have been confident leading 7-2 in the 5th set,’’ said Hoag. ‘’I got mad at the guys because we were all over the place in that fifth set at the beginning. I said ‘One pass, one set, everybody execute technically well,’ and they did that.”
The Canadians reached the final by placing first in group C during the preliminary round with a record of eight wins and two losses. The have now won seven straight matches with Thursday’s win.
Update: Brazil beats Canada to advance to World League semis
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina – After a remarkable victory over Olympic champion Russia on Thursday, Canada’s national men’s volleyball team lost 25-18, 30-28, 25-20 to world number-one Brazil in the FIVB World League Final tournament.
“We showed we can play on the big stage in the world and have the ability to beat great teams in the future,’’ said Canadian scoring ace Gavin Schmitt of Saskatoon.
Brazil (one win and one loss) places first in Group D with four points, Russia (1-1) takes second with three and Canada (1-1) follows at two. The top-two in each of the two groups advance to the semis. Canada needed to win Friday to advance to the semis. A loss in five sets would have required a points for and against ratio tie-breaker to determine the final Group standings. In World League a win in three or four sets is worth three points while in a five-set match the winner gets two points and the loser one.
Fred Winters of Victoria led the Canadian attack with 12 points while Schmitt and Gord Perrin of Creston, B.C., added 10 apiece as Canada completed its first ever appearance in the World League Final, in the event’s 24-year history.
’We overcame a lot of pressure to win our group and make it to the final,’’ said Schmitt. ‘’We won seven games in a row and the last one against Russia which is great, really big for us.’’
Attacker Justin Duff of Winnipeg says Canada needs to be nearly flawless to beat a powerhouse like Brazil.
“We made a lot of mistakes and if you’re going to give Brazil a few points, they’re going to take it,’’ said Duff. ‘’It’s disappointing because I don’t think we played as well as we could today. We want to continue our progress and not be seen as the Cinderella Story, but as one of the good teams in the world.”
Canada opened the match like it ended the one against Russia taking a 2-0 lead. But two five point runs allowed the Brazilians to gain control. Canada squandered set point twice in the second set. The Canadians went up 27-26 after a bullet serve from Joshua Howatson of Victoria but successive held-ball calls gave Brazil set point again at 29-28 before Winters spiked into the net.
That tough loss seem to take the wind out of Canada’s sails early in the third as Brazil opened an 8-4 lead. The never-say-die Canadians fought back to 19-18. Winters tried to rally the troops but a spike out at 23-19 gave Brazil match point before Wallace de Souza sealed it with his match high 18th point.
“They’re always difficult to play, in the World League last year we lost to them – there aren’t easy teams to play in this World League,’’ said Wallace
The Canadians reached the tournament Final Round by placing first in group C during the preliminary round with a record of eight wins and two losses. They had won seven straight matches before facing Brazil.
All matches were streamed on FIVB WEB TV http://www.laola1.tv/en/int/fivb-live/video/203-1922-.html
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