Puerto Rico moves closer to Tokyo

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, January 11, 2020 – Puerto Rico moved one step closer to the Olympic Games after sweeping Mexico 3-0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-23) in the second day of the NORCECA Women’s Qualification Tournament Tokyo 2020.

The Puerto Ricans improved to a 2-0 win-loss record while Mexico fell to 0-2 and out of chances of reaching the Olympics.

Daly Santana and Stephanie Enright once again motorized the Puerto Rican offense with 18 and 15 points, respectively, while Paulina Prieto and Neira Ortiz each contributed 8 points in the victory.

Mexico’s Andrea Rangel led all the players in the game with 19 points while Samantha Bricio was stopped with only 9 points.

Each team committed 16 unforced but Puerto Rico held a slight margin in blocks 11-10 and serving aces 4-2.

Natalia Valentin, Captain of Puerto Rico: “The serves were for us the essential part besides keeping the calm as we were coming from a five-set match where we made many mistakes, something we had to improve”

Andrea Rangel, Captain of Mexico: “There is not much to say. Puerto Rico is a team that serves very well and we were not prepared for that so we made too many mistakes.”

Jose Mieles, Coach of Puerto Rico: “Today our service game was efficient. Also we made some adjustments in the defense to minimize the amount of errors. Today we only made five or six per set”.

Gabriela Alarcon, Coach of Mexico: “We were coming from a match that ended very late besides the service of Puerto Rico attacked our weak points. We have to underline the spirit of combat of our girls who battled point by point.”