(Photo credit: François Laplante, Freestyle Photography)

BELGRADE, Serbia - Canada's men's volleyball team was dropped in straight sets of 25-18, 25-21 and 25-22 by host Serbia Saturday afternoon to finish the Summer Universiade tournament in sixth place.

Summer Universiade website: www.universiade-belgrade2009.org
Team Canada website: www.universitysport.ca/belgrade

Thanks to an overall record of five wins and three losses, the Canadian spikers end up with their third-best Universiade result, following silver medals in 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand, and in 1983 in Edmonton.

UBC's Steve Gotch of Okotoks, Alta., and University of Alberta's Thomas Jarmoc of Calgary paced the attack against the Serbs with eight kills apiece.

Canada won four of five pool matches in pool play to finish second in its group, then lost a heartbreaking five-set decision to Russia in the quarterfinal round after jumping to a 2-0 lead.

The Russians captured gold Saturday with a 3-0 victory over Brazil.

"We had an excellent tournament, I couldn't have asked for a better effort from the guys," said Canadian head coach George Laplante, from University of Montreal. "We were the only team to win sets against Russia in the tourney. Should we have won our quarterfinal, we now know we could have gone pretty far."

STAT LEADERS

Boxscore: http://results.ub2009.org/results/ENG/VO/VOR173A_VO040050100001ENG.htm

Canada
Kills: Steve Gotch (8), Thomas Jarmoc (8), Joel Schmuland (6)
Blocks: Frédéric Desbiens (2)
Aces: Adam Simac (1)

Serbia
Kills: Milos Vemic (8), Goran Bjelica (8), Tomislav Dokic (7)
Blocks: Tomislav Dokic (5), Milan Rasic (4)
Aces: Tomislav Dokic (3)

TEAM CANADA RESULTS

July 2: Canada 3, Great Britain 0 (25-19, 25-14, 25-15)
July 4: Canada 3, Slovenia 0 (25-17, 25-15, 25-16)
July 5: Canada 3, Egypt 2 (16-25, 25-23, 25-23, 21-25, 15-12)
July 6: Japan 3, Canada 2 (13-25, 25-18, 25-22, 20-25, 15-12)
July 7: Canada 3 Ukraine 1 (34-36, 25-20, 25-20, 25-15)
July 9: Russia 3, Canada 2 (23-25, 19-25, 25-18, 25-21, 15-13)
July 10: Positions 5-8 Canada 3, Turkey 1 (21-25, 30-28, 25-21, 29-27)
July 11: 5th position Serbia 3, Canada 0 (25-18, 25-21, 25-22)

About the Summer Universiade

The Summer Universiade is an international multi-sport event that takes place every two years, and is second only to the Olympic Games in the number of participating athletes and countries. The Universiade is open to competitors between the ages of 17 and 28 in the year of the Games who are full-time students at a post-secondary institution (university, college, CEGEP) or have graduated from a post-secondary institution in the year preceding the event.

-CIS-