Canada victorious in World League volleyball season opener
Tiebreak set needed in Group 1 win over Belgium
The Canadian men's volleyball team began their FIVB World League season with a victory — but they did it the hard way.
Canada needed to win a tiebreak to beat Belgium in five sets on Friday in Novi Sad, Serbia.
Playing in their first-ever top-tier FIVB match, the Canadians took the match 25-22,19-25, 26-24, 23-25, 15-13.
FINAL <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BELvsCAN?src=hash">#BELvsCAN</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FIVBWorldLeague?src=hash">#FIVBWorldLeague</a> 2-3 (22-25, 25-19, 24-26, 25-23, 13-15) Canada wins its Group 1 opener!! 🇨🇦💪 <a href="https://t.co/V3k2PiWMYO">pic.twitter.com/V3k2PiWMYO</a>
—@VBallCanada"As a new coach, it's the first official victory for me, so I'm very happy," said Canada's head coach Stephane Antiga, after today's contest.
"The win was hard, but it was a very important and positive win for us. We don't know what to expect tomorrow [against the U.S.] because there are a lot of new players on their roster, and then Serbia is a big favourite in this group, so we'll see what happens."
Team captain and 2016 Olympian Gord Perrin, was Canada's top scorer with 21 points.
Canada led in blocks (13 points), with strong performances by Dan Jansen Vandoorn and Graham Vigrass, while Belgium recorded only five off the block total.
Belgium outperformed Canada on the service line with seven aces - two each by Bram Van Den Dries and Simon Van De Voorde.
Working out the kinks
Canada came out strong winning the first set but were disorganized in the second, allowing Belgium to even up the match. Junior team star Sharone Vernon-Evans provided a spark when he entered the match in the second half. From there, it was a fairly even affair, until Canada closed the deal in the tie-breaker.
Perrin admitted that the team is still working out its kinks: "We are a young team, so we were struggling a little bit, but that is normal because we are still building our game. I think we're going to improve a lot and this is a promising start for us in World League."
Next up for Canada is a match against the U.S. on Saturday at 10 a.m. ET, which will be streamed live on CBCSports.ca.
You can also catch volleyball coverage on CBC TV on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on Road to the Olympic Games, our show spotlighting the best high-performance athletes from Canada and around the world.