Canada defeats Guatemala in opening match at NORCECA Championships

GATINEAU, Canada, August 17, 2010 – Braden Schmidt scored match point on a service ace as Canada defeated Guatemala 25-23, 25-14, 23-25, 26-24 on Tuesday in its opening match at the NORCECA junior men’s volleyball championships.

Schmidt, who scored 11 points in the match, finished off the fourth set with two solid serves.  He gave Canada a 25-24 lead in the fourth with a serve that was fumbled around by the Guatemalan defence before delivering his ace. 

“It wasn’t our best game for sure,” said Canada’s head coach Greg Barthel.  “We were definitely quite happy with the win but we need to improve our play if we plan to go far in this tournament. We were tentative and made too many errors from the service line.”

“It was our first international game and you could tell at times,” added Canadian team captain Tristan Aubry. “We’ll talk it through tonight but we definitely have some things we need to work on.”

Nicholas Hoag led Canada in scoring with 14 points while Lukas Van Berkel added 12 and Kevin Stevens of Hamilton 10. For Guatemala, Jeyson Fernando Nery Flores had 26 points and Luis Agosto Garcia Bettancourt 18.

“Canada has a very strong team,” said Guatemala’s coach William Fernandez Pizat.  “It hurts to lose especially when we fought so hard during the game.  But Canada always seemed to step it up late in each set.”

“Our confidence was very high,” said Flores.  “We came to play with our hearts.  The Canadian team was very tall but we were expecting to win.”

The Guatemalans drop to 0-2 in round robin play.