Canada’s Backs to the Wall After Loss to Poland

Sam Schachter and Dan Dearing suffered a second close defeat at the World Championships today in a match against number two ranked Poland . The Canadians are now 0-2 in the most difficult pool in Rome. They have played the quality of volleyball that would have had them 2-0 in most other pools, but that is of little consolation at this point.

Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak are the second ranked team in Rome and for much of 2022 have been the hottest team in beach volleyball. The Poles suffered a loss yesterday against Christiaan Varenhorst & Steven van de Velde and were just as desperate as the Canadians for a win.

A game of millimeters

This one was literally 1 millimeter away from having a very different feel as Bartosz Losiak hit the smallest sliver of the back line for an ace with the score 20-19 in favor of Canada. Instead of jogging off the court up 1 set to 0, the first set went to overtime.

So close in set one

To get to that points, the Canadians again showed their unbelievable physicality. Just as Daniele Lupo took some heavy Canadian shelling at the back for Italy yesterday, Losiak had to deal with some missiles today. After trading side outs in the opening stages, Schachter served up an ace and then converted a defensive stop to build an 8-5 lead. Dearing showed his famous jumping ability on a point that resembled doubles tennis more than beach volleyball to maintain their lead 12-10. On that play, Losiak’s one handed stab came back over on one and it looked like it would drop over both Canadian’s heads as they were stuck at the net. In a play that few men could have made, Dan Dearing exploded out of the sand, reached up and shot it straight back into the open angle court.

Two of Poland’s great qualities that ended up being a huge factor started to show up late in the first set. First was Poland’s ability to move the point of attack in a way that created some very easy side outs. The second was Bryl’s phenomenal out of system setting that bailed out Poland every time it looked like Canada had the upper hand. Despite Poland playing at the highest level, Canada got another block through Dearing and extended their lead to 14-11.

Couldn’t close out the set

Losiak’s monster serve ate Schachter alive on two consecutive points to bring Poland back, but when Schachter won a crucial joust against Bryl, Canada was looking at two set points for the win up 20-18. The first was a routine side out for Bryl. The…