HIROSHIMA, Japan — Gord Perrin had 26 points and Canada took a step toward earning an Olympic berth in men’s volleyball by defeating Australia in a lengthy encounter at the FIVB World Cup on Sunday.
Set scores were 32-34, 25-14, 25-21, 27-29, 20-18.
Two berths for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are available in the 12-nation tournament that runs to Sept. 23.
Daniel Jansen Vandoorn had 23 points for Canada, which bounced back from a loss to host Japan on Saturday. Steve Marshall added 20 points.
"We are very happy with the win, especially after our match last night when we were very disappointed in our loss against Japan, and I think we needed to prove something to ourselves," said Canada’s coach Glenn Hoag. "It was a hard-fought match…. We’re not really good at one specific thing, we try to be good at everything, and just keep working hard."
Thomas Edgar, who sat out much of the first three sets after a 50-point game against Egypt on Saturday, led Australia with 21 points. Paul Carroll had 20.
The match broke two World Cup records including the longest match (two hours 49 minutes) and the highest scoring game (245 points).
Australia looked in control of the first set until Canada caught up to even things at 24. From there it was back and forth until Australia won the set with 34 points.
Canada carved out a good lead in the second set and held on to win by 11 points.
Edgar’s introduction at the beginning of the fourth set gave Australia a boost and the Aussies took an early lead. Canada clawed back to draw level at 20-20. The Canadians earned the first match point, but Australia reversed it on 26-25 and went on to take it to a fifth.
"I said yesterday that our team always plays hard and we didn’t give up in the fifth set," said Canadian captain Fred Winters. "They had a couple of match points and we fought through it. It was a big team win after two pretty poor performances (against the U.S. and Japan) in the last two days, so it was nice for us."
Canada enters the next phase of the tournament with two wins and three losses.