Canada overcame some first-match jitters to defeat Costa Rica in straight sets at the U19 Girls’ Pan American Cup in Kingston, Ontario, on Tuesday.

The home team won 3-0 (25-19, 28-26, 25-20).

"It was a good win in front of our home crowd,” said Canada’s head coach Gina Schmidt post-match. “I think something we’ll talk about for tomorrow is about how we can reduce the amount of unforced errors on our side, but for a first game we got a lot of players into the game, so that was important. We got to try different people getting used to playing beside each other, so this was a great first game to get those first-game jitters out of the way and we are looking to keep building on that for the next game."

Attack points favoured Canada 52-22, and they had nine aces compared with Costa Rica’s six. Costa Rica led in blocking points 7-4 and earned more points from Canada’s errors 30-13.

Canadian outside hitter Sofia Zabjek led both teams in points with 16 including 14 off the attack. She was followed by Sydney Bell with 10, and Maya Bukovcan with eight.

Canada is back in Group B action today to face off against Dominican Republic at 6:30 pm ET.

The U19 Pan Am Cup is the final tournament before teams head to Croatia and Serbia next month to face off in the FIVB Girls’ U19 World Championship 2025.

Team Canada
Ashlyn Gent (AB)
Sofia Zabjek (ON)
Lydia-Jayne Wigston (AB)
Brooke Fermaniuk (AB)
Maya Bukovcan (ON)
Sol Henson (ON)
Emerson Matthews (SK)
Sydney Bell (ON)
Ana Nastase (ON)
Abby Wasutyk (SK)
Remy Catojo (MB)
Ana Stojanovic (ON)

Preliminary Round Schedule (EDT)
June 24
14:30 Mexico vs Puerto Rico 3-0 (25-20, 25-20, 25-18).
16:30 Venezuela vs USA 0-3 (9-25, 23-25, 21-25)
Canada vs Costa Rica 3-0 (25-19, 28-26, 25-20).
June 25
14:30 Puerto Rico vs Venezuela
16:30 USA vs Mexico
18:30 Canada vs Dominican Republic
June 26
14:30 Mexico vs Venezuela
16:30 USA vs Puerto Rico
18:30 Costa Rica vs Dominican Republic
Semi-finals and medal rounds – June 27 - 28

Web stream:
CBC Sports : https://www.cbc.ca/sports/streaming-schedule &
https://www.youtube.com/@TheVolleyballCanada/featured

Tickets:
https://gaels.universitytickets.com/w/default.aspx

Coaching Symposium
A coaching symposium will take place on Saturday June 28 in conjunction with the event, supported by the Ontario Volleyball Association. Contact Brenda Willis: brenda.willis@queensu.ca

Schedule here: https://volleyball.ca/en/competitions/u19-girls-pan-am-cup

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