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TEPIC, Nayarit,
Mexico, July 15, 2022.- Canada moved into the
semifinals of the Men’s Pan American Cup NORCECA
Final Six after defeating Puerto Rico in
straight sets 3-0 (25-18, 25-22, 25-23) on
Friday at the Amado Nervo Auditorium of Tepic,
Nayarit.
Canada ends
the preliminary round with a 4-1 record and 19
points finishing among the top four in the
event. Puerto Rico with 2-3 record and 7 points
waits for the days’ results to confirm their
semifinal spot.
Puerto Rico´s
effort in leading the third set up to point 14
wasn’t enough to stop Canada’s offense who
finished with a huge 41-27 advantage in attacks.
They also were more effective in blocks by a
comfortable 9-4 margin and a 4-0 lead in serves.
From Canada’s
side, opposite hitter Jordan Canham led all
scorers with 15 points, followed by outside
hitter Logan House with 11 points and middle
blocker Xander Ketrzynski with 10 points who led
in blocks with 4 points.
Outside
hitters Klistan Lawrence and Pedro Molina led
Puerto Rico with 9 and 8 points respectively.
Xander
Ketrzynski, Top blocker of Canada:
“We used our strengths as a team to push
forward. For this weekend you can say it’s a
normal day in the job in these tournaments, a
lot of the guys are very experienced and played
for team Canada for a while, so it’s going to be
the same, either you win, or you lose giving the
best and whatever happens you just gotta leave
it on the court. I believe there are big things
to come for this team, we’ve been working our
system and we are looking forward to the
semifinals and finals”.
Nathan
Groenveld, Assistant Coach of Canada:
“We
had the goal making the semifinals so we’re
really excited that we locked that in place
right now. The bigger goal was to play better
and better every match and we feel we have done
that; and today when we side-out it was awesome.
We’ll go on work on our block-defense to be
ready for tomorrow. Regardless of our opponent,
we have to keep on improving, it’s going to be
on our side of the net, so we gotta make sure
about it”. |
