Canada opens week 3 against powerful Italy

June 11, 2024.- The third competition week of 2024 Volleyball Nations League’s preliminary phase is underway in Fukuoka, Japan, for Canada’s women’s team.

It was not the start that Canada was hoping for, with a 3-0 loss (25-16, 25-15, 25-14) to Italy in the week’s opening match for these two teams.

“Italy is an exceptional team, I’d say one of the strongest teams we have faced so far this year,” said Canada’s head coach, Shannon Winzer. “We didn’t play to our full potential for sure, and that is disappointing, no one wants to lose like that, but the margin of error becomes even smaller against such a strong team.”

Stats favoured Italy: 37 to 30 attack points, 11 to 1 blocks, and 7 to 2 in serves. Canada lost eight more points to errors than Italy.

“We struggled on first contact, we struggled on attack…. It just wasn’t a good game at our end. The best thing we can do is take what we can from it and move on as quickly as possible. What we do next is the most important thing.”

Opposite Paola Egonu of Italy led the charge with 18 points for her team; Kiera Van Ryk contributed 13 points to Canada’s effort.

Canada is still in a tight race to qualify for Paris 2024. More on that process can be found here: https://bit.ly/3xfcDB0

Canada’s next match is against host Japan on June 13.