Pavan, McBain earn beach volleyball bronze for 1st international medal as partners

Canada's Sarah Pavan and Molly McBain won the bronze medal at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge with a 2-1 victory over China's Jie Dong and Fan Wang on Sunday in the third-place game.

Set scores were 15-21, 21-16, 15-9 in Thailand as Pavan, of Kitchener, Ont., and Toronto's McBain picked up their first international medal as a team.

"This weekend held a lot of firsts for our team, but winning our first medal together definitely tops the list," Pavan, a two-time Olympian, told Volleyball Canada. "It is so exciting to see the improvement our team has made in such a short time, and I am really proud of Molly for her performance."

Pavan and McBain won their pool and then eliminated a team from Japan in the playoff round.

They defeated a German team in the quarterfinals before losing to eventual gold medallists Agatha Bednarczuk and Rebecca Cavalcanti from Brazil in the semifinals.

On the men's side, Canada's Dan Dearing and Sam Schachter were defeated in the Round of 16 by Dutch duo Matthew Immers and Steven van de Velde that went on to win gold.