Mexico tops Pool A into semifinals

HAVANA, Cuba, March 20, 2013 - Mexico defeated Peru in three sets (25-18, 25-12, 28-26) and advanced undefeated to the Friday’s semifinals as leader of the Pool A of the U-20 Women’s Pan American Cup.

In their third victory the Mexicans dominated in all departments to beat the Peruvians in attack, block and service.

Only in the third set the Mexicans lost their concentration, and the pupils of Natalia Malaga tied the score until point 26, but the eventual winners were able to close the game to complete the success.

The Mexican Alejandra Isiordia led with 22 points to maintain her good performance throughout the preliminary round, while his partner Lisbeth Sainz contributed 10. Peruvian Angela Leyva led her side with 10 tallies.

Isiordia, the captain of Mexico, said that "from the beginning we went out to win every game and today we showed in the third quarter that we could control the nerves to sort out the difficult situations."

The Peruvian Leyva was unsatisfied, "because we lacked a bit of courage and didn’t do what we know on the court."

The Argentinean Estanislao Vachino, Mexico's coach, said: "This victory is a right step toward the world championship and to beat Peru is good because we know about their courage, although they are missing some players."

Málaga, meanwhile, showed his disappointment. "I feel ashamed. I was surprised by this performance, no matter that only two are juniors and the rest are pre-juniors. But also, there is no pressure to qualify to the world championship. We are going to work on the psychological part since they are good physically and technically.”