Canada beats Costa Rica at home

KINGSTON, Ontario, June 24, 2025.-  Canada overcame some first-match jitters to defeat Costa Rica in straight sets today at the U19 Girls’ Pan American Cup in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

The home team won 3-0 (25-19, 28-26, 25-20).

“It was a good win in front of our home crowd,” said Canada’s head coach Gina Schmidt. “I think something we’ll talk about for tomorrow is about how we can reduce the amount of unforced errors on our side, but for a first game we got a lot of players into the game, so that was important. We got to try different people getting used to playing beside each other, so this was a great first game to get those first-game jitters out of the way and we are looking to keep building for the next game.”

Attack points favored Canada 52-22, and they had nine aces compared with Costa Rica’s six. Costa Rica led in blocking points 7-4 and scored more points from Canada’s errors 30-13.

Canadian outside hitter Sofia Zabjek led both teams in points with 16 including 14 off the attack. She was followed by Sydney Bell with 10, and Maya Bukovcan with eight. Bukovcan also led the team in blocks with two.

Maria del Sol Venegas Grant and Mariela Navarro scored eight points apiece as top scorers for the Costa Rican side.

Canada is back in Group B action tomorrow to face off against Dominican Republic at 6:30 pm ET.

The U19 Pan Am Cup is the final tournament before the team’s head to Croatia and Serbia next month to face off in the FIVB Girls’ U19 World Championship 2025.