Former Trinity Western Unioversity volleyball star Lucas Van Berkel scored 18 points as Team Canada defeated Tunisia 3-2 (25-20, 20-25, 29-27, 20-25, 15-12) at the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Men’s World Cup in Hiroshima, Japan on Wednesday (Oct. 9) .
Other former TWU players from the Langley-based university team on the Team Canada roster include Langley’s Daniel Vandoorn Steven Marshall from Abbotsford, , and Blake Scheerhoorn from Belleville.
“It was a difficult match,” admitted Canada’s coach Dan Lewis. “They put pressure on us with their serve. We missed opportunities to put the ball in play. We tried to make adjustments. Our block defense was good, but we had too many net faults. We need to do a better job on transition balls. If we can get our efficiency even up 15-20 percent on high balls that would be better.”
Canada’s captain Nicolas Hoag said: “It was important to win. We blocked well. We had ups and downs in the match. … We got the victory and had the chance to rest some of our players, which you need to do in a long tournament like this. We hope to win tomorrow against Argentina.”
Next up for Canada, Argentina.
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The 12 participating teams in the FIVB World Cup compete in a single round-robin competition over 11 match days. Three games will be played at each venue each match day.
When the World Cup was last held in 2015, Canada finished seventh overall.