(Photo courtesy/VolleyballWorld)

By Ben Tompkins

Team Canada

Men’s volleyball players and coach bringing back loads of experience from U21 Worlds

Jul 27, 2023 | 3:07 PM

Three members of the Huskie men’s volleyball team recently underwent an experience of a lifetime, representing their country abroad in an international competition.

Head Coach Sean McKay (who served as an assistant), outside hitter Isaiah Mamer, and middle Lucas Musschoot took part in the FIVB Men’s U21 World Championship in Manama, Bahrain as members of Team Canada.

Pictured left to right: Isaiah Mamer, Sean McKay and Lucas Musschoot (Photo courtesy/VolleyballWorld)

“The tournament itself was super well run, Bahrain did an awesome job. You never really know what you’re gonna get when you travel the world to such a foreign place, but they did an awesome job hosting it,” McKay told HuskieFAN.

“We got to see some of the best teams in the world, so to see how some of those other countries are doing and how some of the top countries in the world are doing, it was a really cool experience.”

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The national team played eight matches in 10 days, ending up with a 5-3 record and an 11th-place finish.

They began the tournament 0-2 in pool play, dropping them into the bottom eight with only one win in the first round.

They then rattled off four wins in five tries in the following rounds, against teams on a similar playing field.

McKay explained that the results are around where this team has been performing for the last 30 or 40 years.

“We didn’t go in there and shock the world and play super high, but we also didn’t drop any spots, so performance-wise it was about what was expected, which is good. You always kind of want to punch above your weight class a little bit more, but we kind of ended where we were.”

Players are identified and selected for the team through their USports season in an online platform.

Volleyball Canada picked 28 of the top 21 and under athletes in the country before narrowing it down to 16.

(Photo courtesy/VolleyballWorld)

According to McKay, between a week of tryouts in Canada, two or three weeks in Cuba, and time in Bahrain, it’s about an eight-week span of nothing but volleyball.

He mentioned that for anyone to be able to have that much focus and attention to the game can mean nothing but positives.

“In terms of experience for those two guys that travelled there, you’re quite literally playing against some of the best players their age, but also just some top players in the world. It was really neat to see how the different development systems lined up against ours, you’re seeing athletes you wouldn’t see in North America,” added McKay.

“Anytime you’re playing better competition, it’s going to reflect in your development and I think we’ll see that from both of them this season and moving forward. We can also start to trend our program towards more of a high-performance setting, which is really hard to do without having athletes that have been there and can lead their teammates along in.”

Libero Ethan Smith was another Dog who was invited to the training camp, however, he did not make the final cut to be a part of the team.

While he didn’t get the full experience, McKay knows he was right in the mix and got to go through his own learning opportunity.

McKay also knows he’s another guy that can rally this green and white group this upcoming season, with a lot learned and a lot to implement into a system that now understands, “there’s more than one way to play volleyball.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8