Colombia downs Canada in important pool A victory

LIMA, Peru, August 9, 2019.- Colombia downed Canada 3-1 (25-18, 25-19, 19-25, 25-20) in important pool A victory at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games at the Multisport Complex El Callao on Friday night.

Colombia is making history as they are a few steps away of qualifying to the semifinals waiting for the result between host Peru and undefeated Dominican Republic. Canada will play the final classification match for seventh place against United States.

Colombia’s blocking advantage 14-9 worked well in stopping Canada’s 2-0 set recovery with great attacking and defense skills. Colombia led in attacks 53-51 and scored 27 points on Canadian errors against 17. Canada held 5-0 margin in aces.

Colombian Amanda Caneo continues her spectacular pounding attack, leading all scorers with 26 points on 22 kills and 4 blocks. Also from Colombia, Margarita Martinez contributed with 13 points on 11 kills and 2 blocks. Brianna Beamish topped Canada with 18 points, joined by Sara Kovac and Jasmine White with 15 and 10 points respectively.

Comments:

Antonio Rizola, Head coach of Colombia: “It wasn’t normal for such a young team like ours to win 3-0 because they were too worried in winning, pressured to advance into the semifinals. This is a historic feat for Colombia being part of the top four teams in Pan-American Games”.

Margarita Martinez, outside hitter of Colombia: “We were aware of the difficulties of this match, we went out with everything we have and come out with a victory. We are very glad with the result and assuring our way into semifinals”.

Sara Kovac, opposite player of Canada: “Our team fought strong, especially those last two sets, we were relentless, we didn’t let any balls hit the ground and I loved that we didn’t rest, we were super aggressive. It was a really good experience playing in front of this crowd”.

Shannon Winzer, Head coach of Canada: “In the first two sets we were too relaxed, we didn’t have enough intensity. The last two we played really well, following the game plan and our middles worked really hard to create schemes for our smaller outsides and matched up pretty well”.