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HAVANA, Cuba, October 7, 2022.- Chile beat
Nicaragua 3-1 (21-25, 25-13, 25-19, 25-18) and
will on Saturday will play for fifth place
against Dominican Republic who beat Haiti 3-0,
also on the penultimate day of the Men’s U21 Pan
American Cup at Ciudad Deportiva.
After losing the first set, the South Americans
adjusted their actions to succeed with
advantages in attacks (49-36), blocks (9-5) and
serves (8-4), and committing one more unforced
error (30-29).
Its best men at the offense were opposite hitter
Antar Derpich (16), leading scorer in the match,
and outside hitters Rafael Fuentes (14) and
Leonardo Menéndez (12). For the Central
Americans, with double figures was opposite
hitter Víctor Ariel Cruz (13) and outside hitter
Denis Espinoza (11).
Iván Villarreal, head coach of Chile said “it’s
always good to win under any circumstance,
what’s ideal is to play well, win 3-0 and make
it all a whole, but the game is very stable and
emotional. These boys played yesterday two
matches against two top teams Canada and Cuba,
and that hurts a lot physically and mentally”.
“Today we faced an opponent who apparently could
have been adorable, but they gave us a hard time
in the beginning in our stability and lack of
focus in a performance that needs to be more
stable, and that is what we are looking for in
these tournaments, give support to our players
for their development and solid play”.
Captain Rafael Fuentes argued that “we had a
rough time to start, I think it’s something that
can happen, nevertheless we pulled the four
sets. Our energy was low at the beginning, and
we helped the opponent grow, but this game is
over, we reached our goal of winning and now we
need to think in tomorrow’s match against
Dominican Republic”.
Jorge Mena, head coach of Nicaragua, considered
“our problem has been our height, and in the
tournament the serves. Every time our opponents
serve, they put us in trouble, they aren’t used
to this kind of serves and the height of the
players damages us. The first set was
interesting. We lost, but we still are in the
battle, we face Haiti once again and despite
they won in pool-play, we are going to fight for
not finishing last”.
Outside hitter Denis Espinoza said “it was a
very difficult match, but it will help us a lot
to grow as players and in the court with a good
attitude and learn to follow our coach. It
damaged us so much that our reception failed,
and we couldn’t close well with attacks”.
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