(Photo credit: François Laplante, Freestyle Photography)

BELGRADE, Serbia - Team Canada's women's volleyball suffered a second consecutive five-set defeat on Sunday, this time to Chinese Taipei (25-23, 22-25, 25-23, 20-25, 16-18), and have been eliminated from medal contention at the 25th Summer Universiade.

Summer Universiade website: www.universiade-belgrade2009.org
Team Canada website: www.universitysport.ca/belgrade

Jocelyn Blair of St. Albert, Alta., a three-time CIS All-Canadian from the Alberta Pandas, led the red and white with 19 kills and one ace. She also picked up four blocks, while Sudbury, Ont., native Kristina Fabris smashed 13 kills and four blocks. Five-time CIS medallist Holly Harper of Regina Beach, Sask., scored nine kills, six blocks and two aces.

Canada, which has never won a medal in women's volleyball at the FISU Games, moves to the consolation bracket after finishing fourth in Group C. The Canucks' best-ever showing on the Universiade stage is a pair of fourth-place finishes from Edmonton in 1983 and in 1997 in Sicily, Italy. In 2007 in Izmir, Turkey, the red and white finished in 11th place.

Despite loses to China and Slovenia to open the Belgrade tournament, the Canadians still had a shot at advancing to the quarterfinal stage if they could beat Chinese Taipei by a total of five points or more.

Canada started out well, winning the opening set 25-23, but couldn't find any consistency on offence, losing 22-25 in the second. The teams closely split sets three and four, and then went down to the wire, with Canada losing 16-18 in the fifth.

"We made some mistakes in our serving game, especially in the last two sets, and I think that was the difference tonight," said head coach Olivier Trudel, from University of Montreal.

Chinese Taipei had four players reach double-digit kills, and hovered around the 30% attack rate, and five players with at least one ace. As a team they recorded 64 kills, 83 digs and seven aces.

The Canadians out-blocked their opponents, 15 to six, but couldn't get their offense on track, banking only 55 kills, and committing 13 service errors.

"Our offence was a little too predictable, but that's usually the problem with a young team that doesn't have much international experience," added Trudel.

Canada will open the consolation round against Brazil on Tuesday.

"It is very disappointing because our first objective was to get to the quarterfinal round," said Trudel. "Our serve reception was better tonight, we played well and the girls fought hard, but Chinese-Taipei is a good team with a lot of fast athletes."

STATS LEADERS

Boxscore: http://results.ub2009.org/results/ENG/VO/VOR173A_VO140000300018ENG.htm

Canada
Kills: Jocelyn Blair (19), Kristina Fabris (13), Holly Harper (8)
Blocks: Holly Harper (6), Jocelyn Blair (4), Kristina Fabris (4)
Aces: Dayna Jansen Van Doorn (2), Holly Harper (2), Jocelyn Blair (1)

Chinese Taipei
Kills: Yen-Min Teng (18), Wang-Ju Liao (15), Chun-Yi Lin (13)
Blocks: Chun-Yi Lin (2), Wang-Ju Liao (2), Tzu-Yu Tseng (2)
Aces: Yi-Ju Chen (3), Yen-Min Teng (1), Chun-Yi Lin (1)

TEAM CANADA SCHEDULE & RESULTS (all times Belgrade time)

July 2: China 3, Canada 0 (25-15, 25-18, 25-14)
July 3: Slovenia 3, Canada 2 (25-14, 25-20, 16-25, 18-25, 15-13)
July 5: Chinese Taipei 3, Canada 2 (25-23, 22-25, 25-23, 20-25, 16-18)
July 7: 18:00 Canada vs. Brazil (consolation)

About the Summer Universiade

The Summer Universiade is an international multi-sport event that takes place every two years, and is second only to the Olympic Games in the number of participating athletes and countries. The Universiade is open to competitors between the ages of 17 and 28 in the year of the Games who are full-time students at a post-secondary institution (university, college, CEGEP) or have graduated from a post-secondary institution in the year preceding the event.

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