Chile beats Guatemala in first Pan American victory

CORDOBA, Mexico, August 30, 2018. - Chile beat Guatemala 3-0 (25-18, 25-18, 25-17) in their first victory at the thirteenth Men’s Pan American Cup being held at Arena Cordoba in Cordoba, Mexico.

Chile concludes pool-play as third place in pool A and will move to play for placing 7 to 10 placing matches, while Guatemala in fourth place will wait for the final ranking to determine their next move in the competition.

Chile jumped to a comfortable lead in every set, stopping Guatemala from getting into their usual rhythm.

The Chilean team dominated Guatemala with advantage of 38-29 in kills, 11-7 in blocks and 3-1 in aces. Chile scored 23 points on Guatemalan error, allowing 16 points of their own errors.

With 16 points, opposite Tomas Parraguirre led Chile’s offense, including 14 kills; his brother, wing spiker Vicente Parraguirre joined with 12 points on 9 kills, two blocks an one ace. For Guatemala, Carlos Lopez, Wagner Chacon and Andy Leonardo finished with 8 tallies apiece.

Chilean captain Dusan Bonacic expressed they benefited from the tournament’s delay, “personally, it gave me more time to recover from my injury; we are happy with the victory, it wasn’t easy and even harder after losing two matches. Now we must win what’s next. My team can do things better and now is the moment to show it, we will play them with all we got”.

Daniel Nejamkin, head coach of Chile said “we are glad with the victory; I congratulate the players and Guatemala as well. We finish third and we must battle to finish in the best ranking among the South American teams in the next round”.

Gerardo Gonzalez, setter of Guatemala indicted “our physical condition was good, we lacked attitude, we didn’t perform well and it was difficult. We were hoping for a better result, even win the match. We weren’t effective while attacking and we failed too many serves”.