At the XXII Women’s Pan American Volleyball Cup on Thursday, Canada forced the Dominican Republic to a tie-break eventually losing the deciding set and match 3-2 (25-19, 15-25, 25-14, 26-28, 15-10).

The Dominican team finished undefeated in Pool B, while Canada finished in fourth place with a 1-3 record and will now play for positions 7 to 10.

"The theme has been to fight and live with the results and learn from them. I think we did a good job of learning from our first two games against Colombia and Venezuela, and we took those lessons into the match against Trinidad and Tobago (for the win)," said Canada’s Next Gen head coach Matt Krueger.

"The game against the Dominican Republic was very cool. It was an opportunity to compete against one of the best teams in the world. I couldn’t be more proud of how the athletes laid it on the line, they went for it, competed and fought like crazy and we just fell short. There were some really special moments throughout the match.

"We followed the game plan much better than we had in past games, we applied a lot of pressure from the service line and we really played as a cohesive unit. Everyone contributed to some facet of the game, and it put us in a good situation. For a group of Next Gen athletes to have this opportunity to play with a lot on the line, it’s super important.”

Canada plays Costa Rica today (Friday Aug. 8) at 4 pm local in Colima, Mexico.