Canada wins U19 gold after a five-set battle

BURNABY, Canada. May 17, 2026: Canada won a hard-fought gold medal against its North American rivals, USA, today at the U19 NORCECA Boys’ Continental Volleyball Championship in Burnaby, British Columbia.

USA fought hard to keep its winning record at this tournament, but in the end, Canada prevailed 2-3 (23-25, 25-21, 25-23, 23-25, 15-17) for gold and USA takes home silver.

Head coach Adam Schriemer of Canada credited his team and its captain for keeping calm under pressure today: “I’m super happy for our guys. We got better as the tournament went on. We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for this tournament so we had to improve during the event – it was a good progression of focusing on ourselves throughout the preliminaries, and then as we got into the playoffs we started focusing more on the points. … This match was up and down, both teams played great and then weren’t so sharp at times, but it’s about being in a good competitive mindset and we just stuck with it and fought and made it close and found a way to get it done.

“I thought (Captain) Hendrix Lepp had a great tournament – he was so steady for us and really became a leader for us on and off the court.”

Lepp was top scorer of the match with 29 points (25 attack points, 2 blocks, 2 aces) and was named tournament MVP.

Bryce Thistlethwaite led USA in scoring with 26 points.

USA head coach Andy Read was also proud of his team’s fight: “You have to be willing to go all in and risk it all to win it all, and you have to be able to accept the result. It’s hard right now for them because both teams put everything they had into it, and someone has to come out a winner. But I’m super proud of how hard my guys played.”

From this event, USA, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica qualified for the 2027 FIVB Boys’ U19 World Championship.