GWANGU, South Korea (Team Canada) – The Canadian men’s soccer team suffered a disappointing 1-0 loss to the Chinese Taipei in their second game of preliminary competition Sunday.

Team Canada website: http://english.cis-sic.ca/universiade/summer/2015/index

Gwangju 2015 website: www.gwangju2015.com

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With the loss, Canadians moves to 0-2 and out of medal contention. Following their final game against the host South Korea on Tuesday, they will continue on into the consolation round.

Unlike their first game against Italy, Canada battled hard right from the start and had control of the play for 60% of regulation time. They capitalized on every opportunity they created but were stone walled by Chinese Taipei goaltender Pan Wen-chieh.

“We pushed hard in the second half and put in a lot of effort without the final quality that we needed to get the two goals to win this game,” said head coach Keith Mason. “It’s disappointing not to go through and not to win this match. We thought we had a good chance today and we thought we would get the three points to keep us in the tournament.”

Although out of the medal round, Canada will look to re-group and fight for the ninth place finish which guarantees the team a spot in the next Universiade in 2017 in Taipei, Taiwan.

“We thought we really had a good chance, we have a really good group of guys,” said midfielder Kilian Elkinson of Toronto, Ont. “It was unlucky that we started the first game on the back foot, we were a bit unlucky in that one and we tried to turn it around in the second half of that one. In this game, we thought we could get a win and we thought we had the quality. I think it showed in the game but we just couldn’t get the bounce. We are just going to have to pick ourselves up. We can still play for ninth and that is what we plan on doing.”

Canada will close out preliminary play Tuesday afternoon against South Korea at Yeonggwang Sportium Football Field.

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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 who are at least 17 and less than 28 years of age as of January 1 in the year of the Games. Participants must be 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.

About Canadian Interuniversity Sport

Canadian Interuniversity Sport is the national governing body of university sport in Canada. Every year, over 11,500 student-athletes and 700 coaches from 56 universities and four regional associations vie for 21 national championships in 12 different sports. CIS also provides high performance international opportunities for Canadian student-athletes at Winter and Summer Universiades, as well as numerous world university championships. For further information, visit www.cis-sic.ca or follow us on:

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