USA sweeps Mexico to advance to final

 

September 06, 2019:   The USA took care of business beating their southern neighbors, Mexico, 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 25-23) at the 2019 Men’s NORCECA Continental Championship at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, on Friday night.

 

USA advances to the gold medal final; while Mexico will face host Canada in the bronze match up after Canada lost 3-1 to Cuba in the earlier semi.

 

In this match, T.J. Defalco let all scoring with 15 points (including three ace serves), followed by teammate Brenden Sander with 14.

 

Gonzalo Ruiz led Mexico with 12 points and Julian Duarte contributed 10 to the losing side’s effort.

 

Cuba, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico have locked up spots in next January’s Continental Olympic Qualifier.  Medal matches tomorrow are at 2 and 4 pm local time (CT), with an 11 am classification match.

 

USA, head coach, John Hawks:

“We’re going to the finals, so I’m super happy. Mexico is a good team and we came in with a ton of respect for them knowing that they would play really hard.  Our guys really took care of business in the first couple of sets.  But it was just really good team work all round; I’m really happy for our players. …  We’re not going to take the fact that we beat Cuba earlier for granted. We are looking forward to the final.”

 

Mexico, head coach, Jorge Miguel Azair Lopez:

“We feel at peace.  We knew that Cuba, Canada, and the US were the favorites here. We were happy with that third set with the US, which was very competitive.

 

We are content – our objective was to qualify to the Olympic qualifier and that has been achieved.  We feel good about playing Canada tomorrow, and Canada had a tough match today – so they are going to come back looking to win the medal.”