Canada finishes VNL round 2 with a win

June 02, 2024.- Canada’s decisive effort earned the team a 3-0 (25-15, 25-12, 25-18) win over Korea today in Volleyball Nations League play in Arlington, Texas. 

Attackers Kiera Van Ryk and Alexa Gray led scoring with 13 points apiece, followed by middle blocker Emily Maglio with nine points and setter Brie O’Reilly with five aces and seven total points.

“There are no easy games in VNL”, said Canada head coach Shannon Winzer. “Coming out against Korea we wanted to put a lot of pressure on them with serve, work to be clean on block and have our attackers vary their attack in angles and shots. Most importantly we wanted to remind ourselves to enjoy playing the game! I think we did a pretty good job and can find confidence going into an important round three”.

Today, Canada dominated in attack points (44-21), blocks (8-5) and aces (9-4). Errors favored Korea by one (15-14).

It was a marked difference from Friday’s loss to Serbia: “It felt like we played with a ton of pressure against Serbia, and we made mistakes that are uncharacteristic of us. We need to find a way to continue to play free and enjoy the moment, regardless of what is on the line. Pressure is only going to increase and that game gave us good information about ourselves and we can now come up with a plan to handle it better for next time”.

The next round is in Fukuoka, Japan, where Canada plays Italy on June 11, and then Japan, Netherlands and France.

The team sits at five wins and three losses.

The women’s team is still in contention to qualify for Paris 2024 via the World Rankings.