Puerto Rico records second win at NORCECA U19 Pan Am Cup

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, March 14, 2023.- Puerto Rico scored their second win at the NORCECA Boys U19 Pan American Cup beating Suriname 3-0 (25-17, 26-24, 25-19).

After a closely contested second set, where Suriname thrilled with longer rallies and reaching an even 24,  Puerto Rico came out on top in their second win in pool B.

Puerto Rico led with a huge 40-20 advantage in attacks and 11-2 in serves, they also held a slim 5-4 margin in blocks. Suriname committed fewer errors (20-34).

Outside hitter Victor Torres of Puerto Rico scored a match-high of 17 points on 12 kills, one block and 4 aces. Outside hitter Franco Roark and opposite hitter Dylan Velázquez contributed with 12 and 10 points respectively.

Opposite hitter Meson Anakaba led Suriname with 11 points on 10 kills and one block, joined by outside hitter Leong Lee with 9 points.

Pool-play finishes on Wednesday with Puerto Rico (2-0) facing Guatemala (1-0) and Suriname (0-2) against Nicaragua (0-1).

Víctor Torres, top scorer of  Puerto Rico: “Our strength is the hard work we’ve been doing in practice. There are things to improve, everyday we’re doing it better. The second set was close because of some technical errors that shouldn’t be hard to correct during practice”.

Mesón Anakaba, top scorer of Suriname: “I think I could have done much better than I did today, I am going to work hard to improve. We had more fighting spirit in the second set, but because of our mistakes we not only lost the set but the match as well”.