Wilkerson, Humana-Paredes to play for beach volleyball gold on home sand in Montreal

Backed by a raucous home crowd, Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes rebounded from a second-set loss Sunday to advance to the women's final of the Montreal Elite16 beach volleyball event.

The left-handed Wilkerson found a hole deep in the backcourt to cement a 15-11 victory in the third and final set against Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia of China, who prevailed 21-17 in the second set.

The 26th-ranked Canadians will face world No. 11 Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles in the 6 p.m. ET gold-medal match after the Americans defeated the Dutch tandem of Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon 21-18, 21-19 in the other semifinal.

China was scheduled to meet the Netherlands in the third-place game at 3:30 p.m.

Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes, from Toronto, have placed no worse than fifth at each of their five competitions this season, including a gold-medal victory last month in Jurmala, Latvia.

They outscored Chen and Xinyi 35-26 on the attack but were outblocked 6-2 while each squad picked up recorded four aces.

Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson will play for GOLD at the World Volleyball Beach Pro Tour Elite16 stop in Montreal