USA battles to advance to final

BURNABY, Canada. May 16, 2026: USA will play in the gold-medal match after a semifinal win over Mexico today at the U19 NORCECA Boys’ Continental Volleyball Championship at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, British Columbia.

With visiting fans from both sides in the stands, the teams battled to the last point, but USA managed the sweep 3-0 (25-17, 27-25, 25-23) over its North American southern neighbors.

Daniel Hornyak, outside hitter for USA, was top scorer of the match with 23 points (19 kills, 2 blocks and 2 aces).

Francisco Sebastian Merino Romero led Mexico with 16 points.

Andy Read, head coach of Team USA, was happy with the fight of his players: “Mexico is a very good team and we haven’t been tested a lot yet in this tournament, and so they pushed us which is what we needed. I thought the second set was everything – there were a number of times the ball could have gone down and our guys just fought on the floor and got it over.  … I could not be happier with the effort. We are going to play for the gold medal!”

USA led in attack points (50-36), blocks (9-3) and aces (3-1). USA did lose more points to errors (25-15).

Now USA faces host Canada in the final; while Mexico plays Costa Rica for bronze on Sunday May 17 in the afternoon after the morning classification matches.