Canada loses senior girls’s VCC semifinal to Dominican Republic

Canada’s unbeaten experience on the NORCECA senior girls’s Volleyball Continental Championship got here to a halt Saturday night time when the Dominican Republic received the best-of-five semifinal matchup 3-1.

Canada, which went undefeated in successful the Group A spherical robin pool in opposition to Mexico and Puerto Rico, misplaced 25-27, 22-25, 25-23, 20-25 to the Dominican Republic in an thrilling match that took one hour, 43 minutes to finish.

Kiera Van Ryk of Surrey, B.C., led Canada with 25 factors, whereas teammates Alexa Grey and Hilary Howe every had 13 factors. Howe additionally had three blocks.

It wasn’t the consequence we needed, however I really thought we performed fairly good volleyball. I assumed at no stage did we hand over,” stated Canada’s head coach Shannon Winzer.

“Everybody who got here on court docket did very well and I assumed we battled. It’s laborious to lose a sport like that understanding we performed fairly good volleyball, however Dominican has been taking part in nice volleyball. They have been the staff that got here out on high tonight.”

Though Canada led in assault factors (58-53), the Dominican staff led in block factors (11-8) and ace serves (8-2). Dominican additionally acquired extra factors from Canada’s errors (28-24).

Gaila Gonzalez led the Dominican staff’s scoring effort with 16 factors (13 assault factors; one block and two aces), adopted by Yonkaira Peña with 15.

The Dominican Republic will play the USA in Sunday’s championship. The U.S. squad defeated Cuba 25-12, 25-11, 25-16 within the different semifinal on Saturday.

Canada will play Cuba within the third-place remaining on Sunday.

“We wish that bronze,” stated Winzer. “Our purpose has been high three and we might have favored to be in that gold-medal match, however we’ll take a bronze. Cuba has been taking part in properly, so now we have to regroup and refocus.”