OTTAWA — The United States spotted Canada a two-set lead then stormed back to win their Volleyball Nations League men’s match on Saturday, winning the fifth and deciding set 15-11.

Canada opened with 25-20, 35-33 wins in front of 5,702 spectators at The Arena at TD Place, but lost 24-26, 21-25 to set the stage for the tiebreaking set. The match took two hours, 44 minutes to play.

The Americans finished leading in attacks (67-65), blocks (18-14) and had four less errors (33-29) than the Canadians.

Spiker Xander Ketrzynski led Canada with 18 attack points and two block points. Outside hitter Stephen Maar had 14 attack points and one block point.

“We started off strong, and they came back with some solutions, and in the end the game went their way, and we weren’t able to respond,” said Ketrzynski, of Toronto. “We can’t overthink it, and it’s a new day tomorrow. We must prepare for that.”

Cole Hartke of the U.S. scored a match high 33 points (24 kills, 6 blocks, three aces).

Canada, now with a 1-2 VNL record, plays Turkey on Sunday afternoon.

This is the first week of the men’s VNL. In the preliminary phase, each participating team plays 12 matches spread across three competition weeks. There are three pools per week played at three different venues with six teams each.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2026.