Panama earns first victory at Pan Am Cup

GATINEAU, Canada, June 15, 2011 – Ricardo Brown scored 14 points Wednesday to lead Panama to its first victory at the Pan Am Cup men’s volleyball tournament. 

The Panamanians improved to 1-2 with a 19-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-18 victory over the Bahamas which is making its debut at this tournament.  The Bahamas concludes the round robin at 0-3 but did win its first set of the tournament.

Domingo Avila and Edward Diaz added 12 points apiece for Panama. The top scorers for the Bahamas were Renaldo Knowles with 15 and Shedrick Forbes with 14.

‘’I was surprised with how we did not play well at the beginning,’’ said Panama’s head coach Sergio Balletas.  ‘’After the first set, we seem to get back into our game.’’

‘’The Bahamas showed a lot of variety in its game and that took us a bit off guard at the start,’’ added Brown, Panama’s captain.

‘’We lost focus and you can’t do that at this level,’’ said Bahamas’ head coach Raymond Wilson.  ‘’We gave our opponent confidence and put ourselves in a hole.’’