Mexico Serves up Defeat of Barbados

TULSA, USA, July 14, 2014 – Mexico defeated Barbados, 25-17, 25-16, 25-14 on Monday to open the 2014 NORECA Boys’ Under-19 Continental Championship at the Cox Business Center Arena.

Mexico (1-0) will play Guatemala at 4 p.m. CT in Pool B on Tuesday while Barbados will face Mexico.

Mexico’s strong serving kept Barbados off balance as the winners led in aces 11-4.

Mexico also led in kills (33-27), blocks (6-3) and aces (11-14) and scored 25 points on Barbados’ errors while committing 13.

Mexico’s Bruno Cruz led all scorers on Monday with 13 points on eight kills, one block and a match-high four aces. Ridl Garay added eight points and Alberto Baltazar totaled seven.

Every player on Mexico’s team scored at least one point except libero Ricardo Marquez, who was credited with a match-high 13 digs.

Andriy Stapleton paced Barbados with 11 points on a match-high nine attacks, one block and one ace. Carlos Cyrus of Barbados added nine points on eight kills and one block.

QUOTES

Mexico captain Ridl Garay: “We were not too nervous. We were really excited for the match. We wanted to play. We have been practicing our serves a lot because we know it’s really important to get the win.”

Mexico coach Gabriela Alarcon:  “It was very important to win the first match to build our confidence for the next match.”

Barbados captain Andriy Stapleton: “We started off really slow. At the end, we decided to fight, but it was too late. The passing today was not the best. It was off. The passing is what kill our game. Some of Mexico’s serves were difficult, but there were also easy passes that we should have gotten and we should have. But we have to work on that.”

Barbados coach John Stuart: “We weren’t passing the serves very well at all. That took us out of our game plan. I hope next game we can pass the ball a lot better.  I thought we served pretty well. Our blocking was so-so. But we need to improve our spiking as well.”