Brasilia, Brazil, June 28, 2019 - Stephen Maar was Canada's top scorer as the North Americans stopped Italy in their tracks 3-1 (15-25, 25-20, 25-22, 25-18) Friday evening on the opening day of the last weekend of pool play at the 2019 FIVB Men's Volleyball League.
This gives an advantage to Poland in the race for the tickets to the Final Six of the competition, 10-14 July in Chicago. The reigning world champions had earlier defeated Japan 3-1 (22-25, 25-19, 27-25, 25-20) and now stand at 9-4, compared to both Italy's and Canada's 8-5.
Nicholas Hoag added 16 points to Maar's 19 and Ryan Sclater brought in another 15 in a well-balanced scoring performance by Canada.
With defeat looming after Canada went 2-1 up, Italy coach Gianlorenzo Blengini tried to shake things up by changing his lineup, but it was all in vain.
Oleg Antonov (who was benched after the third set), Daniele Lavia and Giulio Pinali each scored 14 points for the Europeans side.
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