Taipei City, Chinese Taipei (Team Canada) – After two long nights of five-setters, the Canadian men’s volleyball team defeated Cyprus 3-0 (25-15, 25-22, 25-15) on Tuesday night in their third match of pool play at the Summer Universiade.
Cam Branc (Nipissing Lakers) made his debut to the lineup and didn’t disappoint, scoring a team-high 10 kills, followed by UBC Thunderbird Irvan Brar with seven of his own. Libero Jeremy Davies (Brandon Bobcats) recorded a game-high six digs in the three-set match.
“It was a good game plan that our coaches set out for us from the beginning and I thought that we executed it pretty well,” said Davies. “We expected everything that they threw at us and it worked out.”
In the first, Canada dominated from the get-go, coming out strong early on offence. After a number of kills from Branch in his debut, the red and white sailed to a first set win, taking it 25-15.
The second set was more of a challenger for the Canadians and Cyprus went toe-to-toe up to 21 all. Stringing some points together at the end of the set with some tough serves from setter Gabriel Chancy, Canada pulled off the 25-22 win to go up 2-0 in the match.
Firing on all cylinders in the third, Canada had no problem taking out Cyprus by a score of 25-15 for a much needed three set victory.
“I thought we started really well and set the tone and the guys took care of the ball really well,” said head coach James Gravelle. “It was great to see Cam Branch dominate like that after coming back from injury.”
“Argentina will be a tougher team to face and we have to do a lot of scouting. We need three points, which means we need to beat them 3-0 or 3-1. I know some of the players and our scouting will be detailed.”
Canada will take a day off before facing Argentina (2-1) at 1:00 p.m. (1:00 a.m. Eastern) on August 24.