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Brazil advances to Semifinals

 

   

RENO, USA (Aug. 14, 2015) – Brazil secured its spot in the semifinals with a 25-17, 25-19, 25-23 win over Canada on Thursday at the Pan American Cup at the Reno Events Center.

 

Brazil (3-0), which is using the Pan American Cup to prepare for the FIVB Under-23 World Championship, will advance directly to Sunday’s semifinals. Canada (2-1) will play in Saturday’s quarterfinals.

 

Brazil led Canada in spikes (49-38) and blocks (9-2). The teams tied in aces (2-2) and Canada scored 17 points off Brazil errors while committing 15. Brazil’s hitting efficiency was .506 while Canada’s was .329.

 

Brazil outside hitter Douglas Souza led all scorers with 14 points on a match-high 13 spikes and one ace. Outside hitter Carlos Barreto added 13 points on 10 spikes and three blocks. Middle blocker Flavio Gualberto had a match-high five blocks.

 

Canada was led by opposite Casey Schouten with 11 points on 10 spikes and one ace. Outside hitter Stephen Maar totaled 10 points on 10 spikes.

 

Canada had its best effort in the third set when it led 20-18. But Brazil responded with a 4-0 scoring run to end the threat.

 

Brazil Captain Thiago Veloso

“It was a great match and I think we are getting better and better each day. This is our goal, to train each day to get better. We’re very happy to be in the semifinal and we’re working to play better every day.”

 

Brazil Coach Roberley Leonaldo

It was a good match. We played really well in the first and second sets and we made fewer mistakes in our serve. Our blocking could be better as well as our defense, in the third set we had some problems there. The team needed what they needed to do to win. Every day we have to improve and we’ll do that for the semifinals.

 

Canada Captain Brett Walsh

“We’re not too happy with our performance. Credit to Brazil they were a good team that played a great match against us. We have some work to do and things to fix to be successful going forward. They executed really well and we weren’t able adjust. We weren’t quite ready to play their style of game. In the next couple of days and hopefully we’ll improve.”

 

Canada Coach Georges Laplante

“We didn’t pass well in the beginning. We need to be a bit more ready and our serve was not as effective and we were hesitating at certain points which created doubt and that’s not good. We’ll be ready for tomorrow.”