Maurice Torres 31pts carries Puerto Rico Pan Am opener win over Peru

LIMA, Peru, July 31, 2019. - Maurice Torres with impressive 31 points carried Puerto Rico in pool A to win the Lima 2019 Pan American Games opening match over Peru 3-1 (25-14, 25-20, 21-25, 25-11) on Wednesday at the Multisport Complex El Callao in Lima, Peru.

Puerto Rico’s serves unsettled Peru’s receivers by a huge 13-5 margin with opposite Maurice Torres acing 7 points from his match-high of 31 points. The winners also led in attacks 44-32 and in blocks 9-6.

Puerto Rico managed to recover from losing the third set from host Peru, who battled strong jumping to a comfortable six point lead (14-8) and extended to a finishing 25-21 score.

Also contributing in Puerto Rico’s first tournament victory was middle blocker Jonathan Rodriguez with 10 points including 4 aces and outside hitter Sequiel Sanchez with 9 points. On Peru’s side, outside hitter Alvaro Hidalgo and opposite Eduardo Romay led with 12 points apiece.

On day two of the Pan American Games, Peru (0-1) will face Argentina and Puerto Rico (1-0) is set to play against Cuba.

Comments:

Oswald Antonetti, Head Coach of Puerto Rico: “Peru has been working on a new project some years now and their improvement is visible. Our mission here is to keep on working, create a special chemistry among the group that will help us win more matches”.

Maurice Torres, captain of Puerto Rico: “It was a good game for us, a good start; still there are a lot of things we need to work on and I thought it’s really important the way we responded after losing the third set. So we’re going to go back and watch the video to see what happened, to be prepared for another tough match tomorrow”.

Eduardo Romay, captain of Peru: “These are new sensations that we’ve never experienced before, playing at home in the most important event we ever had. Our anxiousness took the best of us, the last time we faced Puerto Rico we lost in five sets in this was our chance for a rematch. We must have clear objectives; we are in a very difficult pool”.

Juan Carlos Gala, Head Coach of Peru: “Despite Puerto Rico’s superiority, the changes we did turned out fine. We had a nervous first set, we improved in the second, we won the third and the fourth should had been a better spectacle but we need to learn how to play and Puerto Rico’s experience outplayed us. I am glad to have won a set to Puerto Rico”.