RIO DE JANEIRO – Nicholas Hoag scored 11 points as Canada fell 3-0 to France in preliminary round play on Thursday at the Rio Olympics.
Earvin Ngapeth led the French with a game-high 16 points while also adding five digs in a 25-19, 25-16, 25-19 victory.
“I don’t think we showed up tonight. We felt it, or at least I felt it, before the match on the warm-up court,” said Hoag. “It wasn’t the same as against Brazil and as against the United States. We need that to beat those kind of teams. We are not as good as them technically and France were a great team tonight. We had a hard time.”
Gavin Schmitt had nine points for the Canadians while Graham Vigrass had seven.
It was the second straight loss for Canada (1-2) after opening the tournament with an upset victory over the United States. The Canadians are currently in fourth in Pool A with three points. They next face Mexico on Saturday before wrapping up preliminary round play on Monday against Italy.
“We have got to win the next two matches. We want to win 3-0 against Mexico,” said Hoag. “That’s a hard thing to do, they are a good defensive team. We’ve played them a lot. And if we play like we played against the United States, we can do well against Italy in our last match of the pool.”
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