Canada overcomes Mexico and advance to semifinals

GATINEAU, Canada, June 16, 2011 – Gavin Schmitt delivered the winning point in the last two sets as Canada defeated Mexico 22-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-18 on Thursday to advance to the semifinals at the Pan Am Cup men’s volleyball tournament.

Canada faces superpower Brazil in its final four match-up on Friday night preceded by the other semifinal between USA and Puerto Rico. Also Canada earns the World League qualifying spot with the victory.

Schmitt completed the match with a game high 21 points ending the third set with a powerful smash that went off a Mexican player and hit the roof of the Centre Robert Guertin and the fourth set with a solid block.  Fred Winters added 14 and John Perrin Gordon had 12. Mexico’s Daniel Vargas and Marco Macias had 11 points apiece.

The Canadians had a rough start to the match falling behind 0-9 on an impressive service run by Mexico’s Pedro Rangel.

‘’We just played catch-up volleyball and nearly caught them,’’ said Canada’s head coach Glenn Hoag.  ‘’We didn’t start Gavin because he has a bit of a sore knee, but we put him back in because we really wanted to get to that semifinal.  He really provides a lot on the attack and that got the flow going.’’

‘’We started nervous and it took us a full set to really get into our game,’’ said Gordon.  ‘’Once we got it rolling we just needed to work out a few kinks.  Hopefully we can play at an even high level for a semifinal.  We will have to be even better.’’

‘’We played great,’’ said Mexico’s head coach Jorge Azair.  ‘’The difference between the two teams tonight was the block.  Now we have to concentrate for tomorrow’s match and the rest of the competition.’’

‘’Canada have a lot of experience and they were able to adjust,’’ said Mexico’s Captain Jorge Quinones.