The Cuban men's national team lost in five sets to host Canada in the start of the first week of Pool 1 of the Nations League, based in Ottawa.

Havana, June 7 (ACN)-- The Cuban men's national team lost in five sets to host Canada in the start of the first week of Pool 1 of the Nations League, based in Ottawa.

According to the International Federation's website www.fivb.com, the fell in a close match against the local Canadians, who won the first half, 25-21, conceded in the second (26-28), reacted in the third (25-21), slacked off in the fourth (22-25) and finished off in the fifth and last (15-13).

The official statistics of the match reflected the dominance of Nicolas Vives' disciples in the attack, 75 points to 57, but the northerners were much better in the blocking (17-6) and their own errors that contributed so many to the setback (24-35), as well as a tie in the service (3-3).

The top scorer of the match was also close, as Cuba's Jesus Herrera deserved that condition with 28 points, 24 in attack, two in blocking and two in service, followed by Canada's Joseph Sclater (27/22-4-1).

Also finishing with double digits for Cuba were Miguel Angel Lopez (15/15-0-0), Marlon Yant (15/15-0-0), Javier Concepcion (12/8-2-1) and Jose Masso (11/8-2-1), and for Canada, Timothy Maar (18/14-2-2), Nicholas Hoag (10/6-4-0) and Danny Demyanenko (10/6-4-0).

This Wednesday 7, the team from the largest of the Antilles will not play, since the scheduled matches are United States-Netherlands and Brazil-Germany.

The next match of the Cubans will be on Thursday 8 and will have as opponent the Netherlands team, in a day that will be completed with the matches between Italians and Americans and Argentines and Brazilians.

In Ottawa, venue of Pool 1, Argentina also won, with a 3-0 (25-22, 25-23 and 25-18) victory over Italy.

The Nations League also had action in Pool 2 in Nagoya, Japan, with wins by the Chinese and the Japanese hosts against Bulgaria 3-2 (25-20, 21-25, 25-21, 20-25 and 15-9) and Iran 3-0 (25-16, 25-22 and 25-15), respectively.

The challenges of this Wednesday 7 of pool 2 are Slovenia-Serbia, Poland-France and Slovenia-Bulgaria, in that order.