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RENO, USA (Aug. 14, 2015) – Brazil secured its spot in the
semifinals with a 25-17, 25-19, 25-23 win over Canada on
Thursday at the Pan American Cup at the Reno Events Center.
Brazil (3-0), which is using the Pan American Cup to prepare for
the FIVB Under-23 World Championship, will advance directly to
Sunday’s semifinals. Canada (2-1) will play in Saturday’s
quarterfinals.
Brazil led Canada in spikes (49-38) and blocks (9-2). The teams
tied in aces (2-2) and Canada scored 17 points off Brazil errors
while committing 15. Brazil’s hitting efficiency was .506 while
Canada’s was .329.
Brazil outside hitter Douglas Souza led all scorers with 14
points on a match-high 13 spikes and one ace. Outside hitter
Carlos Barreto added 13 points on 10 spikes and three blocks.
Middle blocker Flavio Gualberto had a match-high five blocks.
Canada was led by opposite Casey Schouten with 11 points on 10
spikes and one ace. Outside hitter Stephen Maar totaled 10
points on 10 spikes.
Canada had its best effort in the third set when it led 20-18.
But Brazil responded with a 4-0 scoring run to end the threat.
Brazil Captain Thiago Veloso
“It was a great match and I think we are getting better and
better each day. This is our goal, to train each day to get
better. We’re very happy to be in the semifinal and we’re
working to play better every day.”
Brazil Coach Roberley Leonaldo
It was a good match. We played really well in the first and
second sets and we made fewer mistakes in our serve. Our
blocking could be better as well as our defense, in the third
set we had some problems there. The team needed what they needed
to do to win. Every day we have to improve and we’ll do that for
the semifinals.
Canada Captain Brett Walsh
“We’re not too happy with our performance. Credit to Brazil they
were a good team that played a great match against us. We have
some work to do and things to fix to be successful going
forward. They executed really well and we weren’t able adjust.
We weren’t quite ready to play their style of game. In the next
couple of days and hopefully we’ll improve.”
Canada Coach Georges Laplante
“We didn’t pass well in the beginning. We need to be a bit more
ready and our serve was not as effective and we were hesitating
at certain points which created doubt and that’s not good. We’ll
be ready for tomorrow.” |
