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TULSA, Oklahoma, USA, July 21, 2022 – Puerto
Rico came back from a first-set loss to beat
Mexico 3-1 (20-25, 27-25, 25-20, 25-21) on
Thursday at the Girls U19 Pan American Cup at
the Cox Business Convention Center in Tulsa.
The win qualified Puerto Rico (2-2) for one of
the four spots available to NORCECA teams for
the 2023 FIVB World Championship. The team will
move on to play in Friday’s semifinals. Mexico
(2-2) will move to the fifth-place bracket.
Puerto Rico led Mexico in attacks (55-50) and
aces (6-4). Mexico led in blocks (11-7). Puerto
Rico scored 29 points on Mexico’s errors and
gave up 26.
Puerto Rico opposite Grace Lopez led all scorers
with 25 points on a match-high 21 attacks, two
blocks and two aces. Outside hitter Destiny
Skerrett scored 19 points on 18 kills and one
block. Middle blocker Yarianis Suarez had a
match-high four blocks for Puerto Rico.
Mexico was led by outside hitter Ximena Cordero
who had 17 points on 16 spike and one block.
Juan Carlos Rodriguez, coach of Puerto Rico:
“Very happy with this victory. The girls were
very anxious in the first set. We asked them to
calm down and they did it. Our game improved in
the following sets. The serves, the attacks down
the corners and defense were good. We are very
happy with this qualification to the world
championship.”
Luis Bañuelos, coach of Mexico: “Very sad
because we lost this match. We started playing
well but then we committed too many errors that
affected our chances. We still have two more
matches to play and hopefully we will do
better.” |
