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HAVANA, Cuba, October 5, 2022.-
Canada beat Cuba 3-1 in the most battled match
until now and advanced directly into semifinals
winning undefeated group B at the Men’s U21 Pan
American Cup at Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum.
The North Americans celebrated
with scores of 22-25, 25-23, 25-23 and 25-17 in
almost two hours of action in which the crowd
cheered from start to finish, with music and joy
for the battled contest dwelt on court.
Canada prevailed over the hosts
with advantages in blocks (10-7) and serves
(10-3), while in attacks they held a smaller
difference (48-46), while committing more
unforced errors than the home team (32-29).
The local opposite hitter
Alejandro Miguel González once again finished as
the leading scorer of the match with 24 points,
followed by teammate Bryan Camino who added 13.
From the winners, outside hitter
Reeve Gingera led his team with 19 points, while
opposite hitter Brendan Mills and outside hitter
Jacob Sargent contributed with 14 tallies each.
Ben Josephson, head coach of
Canda: “Some weeks ago when we came to Cuba with
the group, we knew it was going to be a great
match and very hard, and we did all we needed to
do. And the match was as we expected it to be,
and the fans were here always supporting their
team. We made some tactical changes and the
blocking worked well, and in the end, we pulled
forward and get the victory”.
Gingera, the most productive of
the team, said “the fans were magnificent, I was
very nervous at the beginning because it’s my
first international event, but little by little
a overcame it. I am glad about everything and
especially with the atmosphere here at the
coliseum the entire time”.
Jesús Cruz, Cuban coach
considered “it was a difficult match, but it
doesn’t keep us from our objective, which is to
play the final to guarantee qualifying to
worlds. We train to win, but also prepared for
defeat. Today we lost against a team that had
less errors and, in the end, we couldn’t sustain
what we showed at the beginning of the first
sets, we lacked concentration to close”.
Alejandro Miguel said “this match
turned out to be complicated and hard, our game
was better in the first set, in the following
two we tried to include the middles more so the
game wouldn’t be from zone two, it worked out
well, but we couldn’t close. We must improve,
but this will make us stronger for our objective
of reaching the final, battle to win and qualify
to worlds, we play for that”.
The winner of pool A will be
decided on Thursday after the match between the
United States and Chile is finished, scheduled
for 10 in the morning.
Quarterfinals
will be at 5 and 7pm. |
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