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GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, May 25, 2022.- Puerto
Rico is headed to the FIVB U19 World
Championship after defeating host Guatemala 3-0
(25-18, 25-18, 25-20) on Wednesday at the Boys
Pan American Cup.
Puerto Rico won pool A with 3-0 record and will
play in Friday’s semifinals, which earned them
one of the four vacancies to the age-group World
Championship. Guatemala, second place in pool A
is set to play in quarterfinals against Chile
who finished third in pool B.
The Caribbean team prevailed in every category,
with a huge 37-16 margin in attacks, 6-1 in
blocks and 8-2 in aces. Puerto Rico committed 37
errors and scored on 24 Guatemalan errors.
Puerto Rico’s offense was led by outside hitter
Diego Lopez with 14 points form 13 attacks and
one ace, outside hitter Victor Torres also
contributed with 14 points on 11 kills and 3
blocks; and middle blocker Ramon Rosado
collected 11 points on 7 kills and 4 aces.
Guatemala’s leading scorer was opposite hitter
Ferdinando Gonzalez with 8 points.
Francisco Negron, Head Coach Puerto Rico: “Our
goal as a team was to qualify to Worlds, now
that we have, we must continue working hard and
continue to improve. I think we have improved in
reception, our offense has been consistent and
not failed a lot during our three matches, but
we still need to improve our serves”.
Ramón Rosado, Captain Puerto Rico: “We´ve
worked hard to qualify to the World
Championship, the group has been together over
four months, and pieces have come together for
our qualification. Our strength is our unity as
a team, we’ve shown it when we fail, and we
unite more among us and our coaches”. |
