Canadian men's volleyball team remains in hunt for Olympic spot after beating Bulgaria

Stephen Maar scored 16 points as Canada made quick work of Bulgaria in a 3-0 win on Friday at the men's Olympic qualification tournament.

The Canadians won each set 25-21, 25-17, 25-18.

Canada led Bulgaria in attacking, blocking and service points, but errors were equal at 20 apiece.

Eric Loeppky scored 13 points for Canada (4-1) and Arthur Szwarc added 11 points.

Martin Atanasov led the Bulgarians in scoring with nine points.

"We played quite a solid game, making very few mistakes in our attack," said Canada's head coach Tuomas Sammelvuo. "It's a good result and now we will recover and concentrate on the next game."

WATCH | Canada sweeps Bulgaria:

Canada moves closer to men's Olympic volleyball qualification with sweep of Bulgaria

1 year ago

Duration 3:11

Canada blanks Bulgaria 3-0 (25-21, 25-17, 25-18) and improves to 4-1 in Pool C at the men's volleyball Olympic qualification tournament in Xi'an, China.

The Canadians are second in Pool C heading into Friday night's match with third-place Belgium (3-2), which will be live streamed on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem at 10 p.m. ET.

Poland leads the pool with a perfect 5-0 record.

The top two countries from each of the tournament's three pools will advance to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Canada's final match is Sunday against Mexico (0-5).

The Canadian team, sitting at 4-1, is in the running for the top-two Olympic qualifying positions.

Canada roster

• #20 Jordan Canham — Avonmore, Ont.
• #13 Samuel Cooper — Hamilton
• #97 Landon Currie — Coldstream, BC
• #6 Danny Demyanenko — Toronto
• #1 Pearson Eshenko — Banff, Alta.
• #2 Luke Herr — Winnipeg
• #4 Nicholas Hoag — Sherbrooke, Que.
• #5 Brodie Hofer — Langley, B.C.
• #80 Eric Loeppky — Steinbach, Man.
• #18 Justin Lui — Pickering, Ont.
• #7 Stephen Maar — Aurora, Ont.
• #16 Jordan Schnitzer — Surrey, B.C.
• #14 Arthur Szwarc — Toronto
• #12 Lucas Van Berkel — Edmonton
• #8 Brett Walsh — Calgary