Canada will meet Puerto Rico in the final at Challenge Cup

MAY 19, 2018. Edmonton, Alberta:  Canada is looking forward to the gold medal match of the NORCECA Women’s Challenge Cup after beating Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 (26-24, 25-18, 25-17) today at the Edmonton Expo Centre. 

After a tight first set, Canada worked better together to decisively win the next two sets. Alicia Ogoms was the match top scorer with 16 points for the winning side; followed by Canadian National Team newcomer Autumn Bailey with 13 points.

Outside Channon Thompson contributed 14 points for Trinidad.   

The Caribbean team will now play Cuba for the bronze medal tomorrow at 4pm local time, while Canada faces Puerto Rico for the top of the podium.

Marcello Abbondanza, coach of Team Canada: “I played some players who didn’t play in the match earlier this week. We played a better blocking game today.  It was a good victory for us to show our progress, but the match tomorrow is more important of course. 

Puerto Rico is a good team and deserves to be in the final; we will give it our best as we want to win tomorrow.”  

Kyla Richey, captain of Team Canada.  “It’s always good to win 3-0… we had a little bit of a rocky start, but we had a few new players on the court, and it was Autumn Bailey’s first international match.  It just takes time to settle in.

We’ve played Puerto Rico a few times in the past, and it’s what we’ve been training for all week. We’ll scout them tonight and early tomorrow to figure out our game plan.”

Francisco Cruz, head coach of Trinidad & Tobago:

“I think the team improved a lot today. They met my expectations; and when I say to do something, immediately they reacted. They had come here but hadn’t practiced before because some players played professionally and we have a lot of problems in Trinidad to have facilities for training. I think today’s match was very good. “

Renele Forde, captain of Trinidad & Tobago

“Today we tried to work out some things in our rotation, we had people playing different positions – I’m playing both middle and setter which is new for me. We’re just adjusting to playing together since this is our first tournament and actual practices together. Coming into the game we just expected to compete as best as we could. I’m happy with the result, I think we fought well and things went smoothly. We’re looking forward to the game against Cuba tomorrow and we’re looking to get third place. “

Tournament note: a change in the tournament was announced earlier this week by NORCECA due to the Costa Rican team withdrawing because of travel issues.

May 20

Bronze match (16:00)

Gold match (19:00)