Update: Canada fell to Korea in a five-setter today (June 14) after a loss to Russia on Sunday in women's play. Men resume play on Tuesday. 

June 12, 2021: Canada defeated Serbia today 3-1 (25-21, 22-25, 25-21, 25-18) for the women’s team’s third Volleyball Nations League (VNL) win of the tournament in Italy. 

"Today we played well," said head coach Shannon Winzer. "We got shaky early on in serve receive, but we came back and did a better job finding consistency on first contact.
 
"There were some solid performances all-round; Brie (King) set a great game and put our hitters in good situations and our hitters delivered. It was also really nice to see six rotations of aggressive serving from the baseline and in the fourth set, I think that was key to not allowing Serbia to find any rhythm.”

After a strong start in VNL that included wins over China and Germany, Canada struggled in the third portion of play, so today’s win was a confidence boost at the beginning of this phase.

Setter Brie King (Langley, BC), in the post-match interview, said: “We wanted to just shake off after the last couple of games and play really free and I think we did it tonight. Serbia are an awesome team and they pushed us, and I think that we were all together and you could feel it in the way we played tonight. All our attackers did a really good job being aggressive. You can tell that we were not shying away from the big moments, but taking big swings, which gave us all the confidence that we had to take a win in this game right from the very beginning."

Serbia is a traditional powerhouse in volleyball, including an Olympic silver medal in 2016 and the gold at the last World Championship in 2018. This is the Canadian women's team's first appearance in VNL.

Canada’s Kiera Van Ryk (Surrey, BC) continues to dominate in scoring, leading today with 21 points, and is at the top of the charts for the whole tournament in scoring and attacking.
 
All matches are live online and select matches are on CBC TV: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/broadcast
 
Recap of recent results:

Week 4 (Women)

June 14
KOR vs CAN 3-2 (15-25, 25-18, 27-29, 25-20, 21-19)
June 13
RUS vs CAN 3-0 (25-15, 25-12, 25-14)
June 12
CAN vs SRB 3-1 (25-21, 22-25, 25-21, 25-18)

Week 3 (Men)
June 11
CAN vs FRA 1-3 (25-20, 21-25, 22-25, 17-25)
June 10
RUS vs CAN 3-1 (25-18, 25-18, 23-25, 25-23)
June 09
SLO vs CAN 3-0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-22)
 
Week 3 (Women)
June 08
CAN vs NED 0-3 (19-25,12-25, 21-25)
June 07 
CAN vs JPN 0-3 (16-25, 15-25, 15-25)
June 06
CAN vs POL 2-3 (25-22, 25-21, 21-25, 17-25, 7-15)
 
Week 2 (Men)
June 05
CAN vs ITA 2-3 (19-25, 21-25, 25-21, 28-26, 11-15)
June 04
CAN vs BUL 3-0 (28-26, 25-23, 25-16)
June 03
IRI vs CAN 3-1 (22-25, 25-22, 25-22, 25-22)
 
For full VNL results and updates, see the event web site:
https://en.volleyballworld.com/volleyball/competitions/vnl-2021/
 

Photo: FIVB

Volleyball Canada media contact:
Jackie Skender
Mobile: 613.794.7676