First Teams Shine
Daniel Dearing finishes the point against Slovakias Klemen Ponikvar.
Canada’s second beach teams both men’s and women’s were unsuccessful in their bid to win their way out of the qualifier in Blackpool for the SWATCH FIVB Junior U21 World Championships. The men’s team of Dearing-May won their first match Wednesday morning against Mohoric-Ponikvar of Slovenia 2-0 (21-18, 21-13). Later in the day they lost to the sixth ranked Brazilian team of Jo-Marcus 0-2 (19-21, 18-21). The women’s team of Cross-Vlcek also lost their chance to move on after losing to Norway’s Hansen-Solvoll 1-2 (22-20, 18-21, 12-15).
Canada will have to look to the main draw teams of Krizmanich-Whitaker for the women and Marshall-Schachter on the men’s side to advance through their respective pools into round play. Marshall-Schachter took the first step to doing just that by defeating the 18th ranked Antonsen-Gamlemoen of Norway in their first game played today, 2-0 (21-13, 21-11). Then they made easy fare of Britain’s second team Gregory-Crooks slaming them 2-0 (21-14, 21-3). Tomorrow they will face Cook-Smith also from the host country, Great Britain, who earlier lost to the Norwegians.
Whitaker-Krizmanich on the women’s side handled their first match easily by crushing the Austrians Knöppel-Herndler 2-0 ( 21-15, 21-14). They will face the Brits, first-ranked Smith-Grimson at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Later in the day they will match up against van Gestel-Meppelink of the Netherlands.
photo: fivb.org
