Canada beats Mexico at Olympic qualifier

Dominican Republic’s Brayelin Elizabeth Martinez (20) has a kill against Puerto Rico’s Lynda Morales (18) and Vilmarie Mojica (3) in a women’s volleyball NORCECA round-robin Olympic qualifying tournament match in Lincoln, Neb., Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016.

Lincoln found out it would be hosting the tournament previous year, and businesses nearby have been preparing as well. But Canada earned points off big blocks late before securing the victory when Puerto Rico’s Sequiel Sanchez put a serve into the net.

The U.S and the Dominican Republic, both 2-0, were scheduled to face each other later Saturday for gold. And adjustment number two is to get less aggressive in our passing because we had a lot of good passes, good positioning, but overpasses.

The Canadian men fell a win short of going to London in 2012 when they were beaten by the U.S.in the final of this tournament. “This has actually turned out to be a blessing to get the opportunity to be with one another again, to keep working on where we left off. It seems as though everyone came back very grateful and appreciative of getting another opportunity to be with one another, and we’ve been really going hard in the gym”.

In fact, the Americans reconvened from their club teams and Christmas on December 26 to start their preparations for this week’s second chance at Olympic qualifying, and did so with a noticeable, newfound energy and commitment to one another.

“We don’t need him to qualify for the Olympics”, Winters said.

Canada, now 10 in the world, is the top-ranked team in the tournament, followed by Cuba (15), Puerto Rico (22) and Mexico (24). “It sucks for him and a big loss”. “This summer, we played them in our league quite a bit and we played them in NORCECA”.

“We’re not the most skilled team in the world. The emotion builds on the court with the crowd, so it helps”.

“When we simplify the game and slow it down, we play much better so we’ll try to do that”.

The third-place finisher at the NORCECA qualifier moves on to a four-team tournament that will feature the third-place team from South America and the second- and third-place finishers from Africa.

“The Netherlands are a strong team with super defence, and they demonstrated their strength in the second set which they won”.

Hoag overhauled the men’s program in 2012 to establish a national training centre in Gatineau, Que.

“Just to support United States of America volleyball and some of the ex husker players, so we’re coming all three nights it’ll be fun”, Jason and Lidia Reinke said.

They will be joined at the tournament by Italy after they earned a dramatic 25-23, 19-25, 25-23, 15-25, 15-13 win over host nation Turkey to win the third place play-off.