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CALGARY, Canada, May 16, 2015 -
Canada won its first match of the season in straight sets over
Cuba 3-0 (25-20, 25-19, 26-24). Gavin Schmitt scored a game-high
17 points, and fittingly earned the final kill of the match to
help Canada win the Pool C match of the World League.
Schmitt topped Canada with 17 points and next was Toontje Van
Lankvelt with nine. Osmany Uriarte and Rolando Cepeda finished
with 11 and 9 points, respectively, for the losers.
“We stayed pretty aggressive, we
stayed patient and started to manage balls a lot better. They
didn’t play as well as I think they can, and I think they’ll
come out banging a little more tomorrow,” said Schmitt. “I
remember a couple of years ago, we’d get together at this point
and it would take us weeks to iron things out. To be able to
come out and play Cuba like this and get a win after so little
training shows how far we’ve been able to come.”
In front of a noisy crowd of
6,400 fans at the Corral at Stampede Park, Canada got off to a
strong start, racing out to a 6-1 lead in the opening set. Cuba
evened things up at 12-12 but Canada again pulled away, with
Schmitt picking up four successful attacks and an ace in the
25-20 first-set win. Cuba's Lazaro Fundora was also impressive
with four attacks of his own and a block.
The visitors responded in the
second set and worked their way to a 6-3 advantage. Canada
regained composure after the technical timeout, going on a 4-1
run to lead 10-9. Then Cuba suffered a scary moment when Fundora
injured his knee and needed to be carried from the floor. Canada
wrapped up the second 25-19.
Said Canada’s coach Glenn Hoag:
“The result was good for us, we did a lot of good things, but we
can see we have a lot of work ahead of us too. There is a lot of
fine-tuning, it’s going to take time.” |
