Canada advances to semifinals in women’s sitting volleyball at Paralympic Games

PARIS – Danielle Ellis scored 21 points Monday to lead Canada to a 25-14, 25-17, 25-13 victory over Rwanda as Canada advanced to the semifinals by finishing second in its pool with two wins and a loss.

The Canadians will likely face China in its semifinal scheduled for Thursday evening. The Chinese, 2-0, close out their preliminaries Monday against France (O-2).

‘’We definitely are building towards our winning style of play in this tournament,’’ said Ellis, from White Rock, B.C. ‘’This is a team that cares for each other, works for each other and honestly competing for each other on every point.’’

Canada’s head coach Nicole Ban says her squad will have to be sharper against the Chinese who have won silver at the last two Games and gold at the three before that.

‘’We’ re happy with the outcome and we know we need to get better,’’ said Ban. ‘’China is a team that doesn’t make errors. They play a really strong system with great defence. I expect a real battle and we are going to have to play at a very high level to compete with them.’’

Julie Kozun of Melfort, Sask. added 12 points for the victors and Jennifer Oakes and Sarah Melenka of Vegreville, Alta. added 10 apiece.

Oakes showed her strong serving skills with three aces and served an eight-point run in the first set. Canada had a whopping 14 service aces overall and capitalized on 13 unforced errors by the Rwandans.

‘’Serve and serve pass is something our team works on a lot,’’ said Oakes. ‘’It’s one of the pillars of our game.’’

The other semifinal on Thursday pits world champions Brazil (3-0) against the winner of the USA-Italy prelim (both 1-1) match on Tuesday to determine second place in the other pool.  

The Brazilians beat Canada in the gold medal game at the last world championships in 2022.  It was Canada’s best ever international result in sitting volleyball. There are 11 of 12 players from that worlds team and nine returning members from the fourth-place finish in Tokyo.

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