The Canadian volleyball team was overmatched in its game on Friday, with Iran easily winning the duel 3-0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-16) to push Canada into the Universiade classification round in Taipei.
Canada, which finished the preliminary round with a 2-3 record, was virtually never ahead in the game, lagging behind 16-8, 16-10 and 16-9 at each of mid-set technical timeouts.
“We knew that we were going to be in tough with Iran, they’re one of the best two or three teams in the tournament," said head coach James Gravelle. “We decided to take a few more risks from the service line which we thought was one of the only ways that we could get them into trouble, but we missed a lot of services in the first set and that kinda set the tone.”
Cameron Branch led the red and white in terms of kills (8), while Lucas Coleman obtained a team-high four digs.
Canada can now only hope for ninth position. It will play its first game of the classification round on Sunday, August 27.
“We’ll be playing teams that are still very strong, but closer to our own caliber,” said Gravel. “Now we’re classified with teams that we should be playing against, so these next three matches will be a good tournament for us.”