Canada coach Marcello Abbondanza instructs his players against Cuba
Sapporo, Japan, October 3, 2018 – Brianna Beamish, Alexa Gray and Emily Maglio were the top scorers for Canada as they edged Cuba in a battle of two winless teams on the fourth day of action in the FIVB World Championship at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center on Wednesday. It was a crucial win, Canada captain Kyla Richey said.
Canada captain Kyla Richey: We’re really happy to have our first win in the World Championships. It was a necessary win for us in order to help us reach our goal of getting into the second round. We have a tough game against Bulgaria tomorrow so this was necessary in order to get to that goal. We always have a good game against Cuba, but we committed a bit too many errors in the first set. In the second set, we were able to establish some rhythm and get our game together. We had good balance on our offence tonight and that helped our success.
Canada coach Marcello Abbondanza: For sure I’m satisfied with the result, to get a win in the World Championship, but maybe our level wasn’t so great today. We played better yesterday under less pressure. With today’s victory we can still dream of reaching the second round. I hope tomorrow we can approach the game in a better way and not like we did in the first set today.
Cuba coach Tomas Fernandez: I can say I am satisfied today. Canada are in the same confederation, so we know them well. We really wanted to win today but we made so many mistakes and that’s why we lost.
Cuba captain Diaris Perez: We wanted to make a good game today. We both had a good match but we felt the world level is difficult for us. We tried to concentrate point by point but the level was too high for us. Tomorrow will also be tough, but we’ll try our best.