Puerto Rico sweeps Canada to find the winning track

COLORADO SPRINGS, USA, August 23, 2019 – Puerto Rico got its first win of the 2019 NORCECA Champions Cup as its men’s team swept Canada 25-19, 26-24, 25-21 at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center.

Puerto Rico led in attacks (42-33). Canada led in aces (6-3) and the teams tied in blocks (5-5). Puerto Rico scored 26 points on Canada errors and committed 20.

Puerto Rico’s Gabriel Garcia led all scorers with 18 points on a match-high 17 kills and one block. His teammate Pelegrin Vargas added 11 points on seven kills, a match-high two blocks and two aces.

Blake Scheerhoorn led Canada with 14 points on 13 kills, one block. Teammate Eric Loeppky added 10 points on six kills and a match-high four aces.

Puerto Rico captain Pelegrin Vargas: “Yesterday, we had a little bit of nerves. We’re a young team and haven’t had many reps together. We just talked and said “enjoy, just play simple.” We didn’t have much of a game plan other than what we can prepare in one or two days. I think the guys showed they can compete at a high level, that we can do it wherever. I’m really proud of all of us, the staff, all the players. I think what we did today is really good for our program.”

Puerto Rico Coach Oswald Antonetti: “Some of our guys flew in from their universities, and we had to wait a lot for the last match, and we were playing U.S. in their home. So, we slept, and we were frustrated, but maybe something clicked with our character, and today we just competed better.

“We were a bit more relaxed serving. We have a younger group who serve pretty well. We like to compete; it’s in our nature, so today we competed, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll be ready.”

Canada captain Danny Demyanenko: “Overall our energy was a little bit flat. The other team played a really good match. They put a lot of service pressure on us, so it made it really difficult to find our own rhythm. Going into tomorrow, we just want to come out firing. It’s going to be a great match. It’s going to be awesome to play the U.S. at home here. We’re really excited to get a chance to face off against the home court team. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and we’re hoping to bring a lot of energy. We’re going to be battling against the crowd, so we’re really excited to get on our way.”

Canada coach Ryan Marsden: “Puerto Rico played really well. They served so tough and they swung on every ball. Our biggest strength we have is our block and our defense, and they made us not look very good today with that. We take our hat off to them; we have a massive amount of respect for the way they played today. We just didn’t do a good job of scoring. Tomorrow we have to find a way to score. We play the U.S., who’s really big and physical, and they’re playing at home. We’re going to have to play way better tomorrow than we have this whole tournament or else we could be in trouble again. We’ll go back and regroup. If we play our best together, we’ll do good.”