Puerto Rico earns important 3-0 win to Peru at Pan Am Cup

CORDOBA, Mexico, August 30, 2018. - Puerto Rico earned an important 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-21) victory over Peru in pool C at the thirteenth Men’s Pan American Cup at the Arena Cordoba in Cordoba, Mexico.

Puerto Rico finishes pool-play with 2-1 record and 15 points, waiting for the result between Argentina and United States to determine their final ranking in pool C.

Puerto Rico gave a rest throughout the match to their key players, managing to hold off Peru that was always 3-4pts behind, with a comfortable 40-29 advantage in kills and huge 8-0 in aces. Peru held a respectable 9-4 margin in blocks. In errors they were similar, Puerto Rico with 20 points and Peru with 23.

Wing spikers Pablo Guzman and Eddie Rivera led Puerto Rico with 14 points apiece, while opposite Juan Vazquez collected 11 points. Opposite Eduardo Romay topped Peru with 15 points and wing spiker Jose Vargas contributed with 10 points.

Eddie Rivera, one of Puerto Rico’s top attackers said “the team is very animated, we have the goal to qualify to the Pan American Games and after a great match against United States, as todays, we feel we are at our best. In addition, after coming from intense heat in Barranquilla, the weather here is fresh and sets us well”.

Eduardo Romay, Peru’s leading scorer expressed “Puerto Rico is a difficult opponent to face, they are the Central American and Caribbean champions, added that yesterday they beat United States with excellent performance. We were trying to figure out how to read their game and in that intermission we got lost, we just needed to put more heart to our performance. We are in the process of preparing and we have to be patient, but things turned out well; we have nothing to lose here, this is our first senior Pan American Cup”.

Oswald Antonetti Puerto Rico’s head coach said the result in three sets is very important “we will wait for the result between two physical teams (Argentina and USA); Argentina is very tactical and United States is strong, it will be an interesting match. Observing them will help us to keep on reading and studying to keep on searching for new tendencies”.

Regardless of their next opponent, Oswald said their goal is to reach the Pan America Games “we are continue to work as a team, reaching emotional intelligence and winning one point at a time; if you observed the match, you can see that we used different line-up, resting some more experienced players”.

Cuban Juan Carlos Gala, coach of Peru said to be content with their positive results in one of the toughest pool, “just being here is a victory for us, we’ve faced powerful opponents and none has overwhelmed us. We need our players to respond more relaxed and confident at crucial moments and this is possible only with experience; we are looking for that, detecting our errors. I am sure that Peru will give something to talk at the Pan American Games”.