United States beats Canada in 3 sets to stay undefeated at volleyball World Cup

Canadian captain Frederic Winters (Photo from Wikipedia/Piotr Drabik)

HIROSHIMA, Japan – Canada suffered its second defeat at the men’s volleyball World Cup, falling to the undefeated United States 21-25, 20-25, 17-25 on Thursday.

Matt Anderson scored 13 points and Taylor Sander added 12 as the Americans improved to 3-0.

Canada dropped to 1-2.

“This was a bad game by us,” said Canadian captain Frederic Winters. “We didn’t show a lot of heart. They took us out of our game. They are a good team and we are not on their level.”

Canada resumes play on Saturday against host Japan, which is 2-1 after downing Australia in four sets on Thursday, and will wrap up round-robin action on Sunday against the Aussies.

“We have to focus on the rest of our matches,” said Winters. “We have had some OK performances here but today was not good.”

World champion Poland also improved to 3-0 with a hard-fought 25-18, 19-25, 25-21, 27-25 win over Argentina (2-1).

Italy stayed even with the United States and Poland with a 20-25, 26-24, 25-22, 25-13 win over Egypt, while Iran overpowered Venezuela 25-20, 25-17, 25-15. Both Egypt and Venezuela are winless.

Defending champion Russia improved to 2-1 with a 25-17, 25-16, 29-27 win over Tunisia, while Japan beat winless Australia 25-17, 25-21, 25-27, 25-18.

Two berths for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are available in the 12-nation tournament that runs to Sept.

23.