May 17, 2026: Canada won a hard-fought battle with the USA today for the gold medal at the U19 NORCECA Boys’ Continental Volleyball Championship in Burnaby, British Columbia.

The Americans put the pressure on to keep a winning record at this tournament, but in the end, Canada prevailed 2-3 (23-25, 25-21, 25-23, 23-25, 15-17) for first place in front of a packed West Gym at Simon Fraser University (SFU) on Sunday. USA takes home the silver medal.

Canada's U19 head coach Adam Schriemer credited his team and its captain for keeping calm and focused today: “I’m super happy for our guys. We got better as the tournament went on. We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for this tournament so we had to improve during the event – it was a good progression of focusing on ourselves throughout the preliminaries, and then as we got into the playoffs we started focusing more on the points. … This match was up and down, both teams played great and then weren’t so sharp at times, but it’s about being in a good competitive mindset and we just stuck with it and fought and made it close; finding a way to get it done.

“I thought (Captain) Hendrix Lepp had a great tournament – he was so steady for us and really became a leader for Canada on and off the court.”

Outside hitter Lepp, a 16-year-old from Vancouver, B.C., was top scorer of the match with 29 points (25 kills, 2 blocks, 2 aces) and was named tournament MVP.

USA head coach Andy Read was also proud of his team’s fight in the exciting final: "You have to be willing to go all in and risk it all to win it all, and you have to be able to accept the result. It’s hard right now for them because both teams put everything they had into it, and someone must come out a winner. But I’m super proud of how hard my guys played.”

Opposite Bryce Thistlethwaite led USA in scoring with 26 points.

Mexico won bronze over Costa Rica 3-0 (25-8, 25-12, 25-15) earlier today. From this event, USA, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica qualified for the 2027 FIVB Boys’ U19 World Championship.

U19 Athletes (Canada)
1 - Joaquin Lopez - Markham, ON
3 - Jaden Hoff – St. Catharines, ON
4 - Hendrix Lepp – Vancouver, BC
5 - Lennon Mari – Lloydminster, SK
6 - Hudson Penz – Red Deer, AB
8 - Jacob Hughes – Vancouver, BC
9 - Nathan Herfst – Burnaby, BC
11 - Andrew Pook – Cambridge, ON
12 - Joseph Vanderkooi – Abbotsford, BC
15 - Jordan Low-Ring – Toronto, ON
22 - Cameron Johansen– Toronto, ON
23 - Odin Pleau – Waterloo, ON
51 - Justin Jamieson – Sandford, ON
99 - Julian Josephs – Uxbridge, ON

Head Coach: Adam Schriemer
Assistant Coach: Scott Koskie
Assistant Coach: Andrew Jones
Athletic Therapist: Tristan Sandhu
Physiotherapist & Medical Lead: Victoria Drouin
Performance Analyst: Martin Ambrozic
Team Manager: Cassandra Nicol
High-Performance Director: Julien Boucher

Volleyball Canada Media Contact:
Jackie Skender
jskender@volleyball.ca
Mobile: 613-794-7676