Gavin Schmitt leads Canada to historic win over Italy to go through to the quarterfinals of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 15, 2016 - Canada beat Italy for the first time ever in any official FIVB competition to secure a spot in the men's quarterfinals of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with a 3-1 (25-23, 25-17, 16-25, 25-21) win led by Gavin Schmitt.
It was Italy's first defeat in the competition, but the Azzuri were already assured of a first-place finish in the pool.
Matteo Piano was not even on the bench and Italy coach Gianlorenzo Blengini started the match without his team's top scorer Ivan Zaytsev -meaning Luca Vettori and Oleg Antonov were on the starting lineup.
It was a brilliant opportunity for Canada, and although Zaytsev did eventually come off the bench and even started in the third and fourth sets, the North Americans seized the day to advance to the last eight.
For a minute it seemed as if Italy would come back from two sets down to force a tie-break, but wih Schmitt on fire in the fourth as the Europeans were closing in, Canada held them at bay before Tyler Sanders stepped up to the service line and discharched two torpedos -the second a direct ace on Zaytsev.
Schmitt with 25 points and Vettori with 20 were the top scorers of each side. Italy prevailed in serving with 9 aces to 3, but conceded as many as 34 unforced errors while Canada proved more efficient in attacking.
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