Pischke and partner lose bronze medal volleyball match at Pan Am Games

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This article was published 21/07/2015 (3710 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO – Winnipeg’s Taylor Pischke and partner Melissa Humana-Paredes came up one victory short of becoming the first Canadian women in Pan Am Games history to reach the podium in beach volleyball.

In Tuesday’s bronze medal game, the Canadians were soundly beaten 21-9, 21-14 by Liliane Maestrini and Carolina Horta of Brazil, who were considered gold medal favourites before the event, but upset in the semi-finals by Argentina.

“Obviously today wasn’t a very good day for us, definitely not our best, not even close to our best,” said Pischke, a six-foot 22-year-old. “Brazil did a very good job of keeping us outside of our game. I never really felt like I was in the match today, or really comfortable. It was windy so I never felt like I was in control of the ball, which is hard to win when you feel like that.”

The former University of Manitoba indoor volleyball star – whose father Garth is long-time coach of the university’s men’s team and a two-time Olympian – added that she will take away some valuable lessons from the defeat.

“You learn so much from losses, way more than when you win,” she said. “There’s so many things that we learned – just that you need to get right into the match right from the very beginning because they’re not going to let you break and get back in it on your own. So starting strong and really being aggressive. We weren’t aggressive from the start and we were tentative and you can’t win a volleyball game when you’re tentative.”

Making the loss particularly difficult for Pischke to take was how well things went for her and Humana-Paredes right through to the semi-finals. They didn’t drop a set until losing that match to Cuba.

Pischke admitted it was much easier said than done to get over that defeat.

“It’s really hard playing the semis and losing a close one,” she explained. “It’s hard to forget about that and play two days later for the bronze and focus when your true goal was the gold medal. To forget about that and try to refocus for the bronze medal is the hardest thing in the tournament, I think.”

Despite the bitter disappointment of not reaching their goal of winning a medal, there are plenty of great memories for Pischke to take away, and the reality is that she is very young in beach volleyball terms, so there will be many more important international competitions to come, including, she hopes, the Olympics next summer.

“This is by far the largest multi-sport Games that we’ve ever been a part of. I think it’s a really good stepping stone trying to qualify for the Olympics next year, playing in games of this magnitude. So we’re going to take some positives from it and move forward.”

Pischke said she and Humana-Paredes will now take a month off in Toronto.

“Both our bodies need a bit of a break,” she said. “We’ve been on the go for about nine weeks now so this is our last tournament for a while.”

After that rest, they’ll return to the world beach volleyball tour, with an event in Long Beach, California. That, and the remaining events on the calendar, will be all about collecting valuable ranking points because only the top-ranked team in Canada will get a berth at the Rio Olympics. There are two teams Pischke and Humana-Paredes must pass.

“It’s going to be tough. It’s the Olympics for a reason. But we’re ready for the fight and we’re ready for the challenge. Starting tomorrow, my mind will be back on the Olympics. This event wasn’t a qualification tournament, no points with it, so in that respect it’s OK. But it’s not. We wanted that bronze today so it’s tough.”

This marks the fourth time Canadian women had advanced to the semi-finals at the Pan Ams, only to lose in the bronze medal game.