Canada aced its way to semifinals

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, July 10, 2018 – Canada relied on powerful serves to defeat host Dominican Republic 3-0 (25-23 25-14, 25-20) in the decisive match of Pool A of the Women’s Volleyball Pan American Cup on Tuesday.

Both teams arrived into the match with undefeated 2-0 marks and 10 points with the Canadian side coming out with the best record among pool winners with the maximum 15 points.

Alexa Gray led Canada with 18 points and Kiera Van Ryk added 14, including 6 aces, in the victory. Autumn Bailey charted 7 and Jennifer Cross and Emily Maglio each had 6 points for the winners.

Brayelin Martinez had 12 points as the best Dominican scorer and Gina Mambru added 8 in the losing cause.

Canada outserved Dominican Republic 11-5 and also held the advantage in the blocking department 6-4.

Megan Cyr, Captain of Canada: We were prepared to play a superior team. Our serves and blocking gave us the win. It was a team effort.

Bethania de la Cruz, Captain of Dominican Republic: Congratulations to Canada. They played great and deserved the win. Our team made many errors.

Marcello Abbondanza, Coach of Canada: It was one of the best games we have played. It was one spectacular victory, with a neat execution.

Marcos Kwiek, Coach of Dominican Republic: A good summary of the match is that we played very bad and Canada played very well. We didn’t execute with our serves and lacked aggressiveness.