HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 23 (ACN) Cuba will dispute today the bronze medal against Mexico, after losing 1-3 in a duel of unbeaten teams against Puerto Rico in the semifinals of the men’s NORCECA Volleyball Continental Championship held in the Mexican city of Durango.
Coach Yosvany Muñoz’s disciples lost the first set 16-25, evened the score in the second 25-19, but could not keep up and lost the third and fourth sets, 24-26 and 29-31, respectively, after two hours and three minutes of play.
Cuban Jesús Herrera scored a match-high of 24 points, followed by teammates Miguel Ángel López (18) and José Israel Massó (10).
Puerto Rico took advantage on scoring 44 points from Cuba’s unforced errors while Cuba led in every skill with 55-47 in attacks, 12-7 in blocks and 6-3 in service points.
After the game, the Cuban coach said: “Puerto Rico knew how to make the most of our many errors and lost serves throughout the four sets. Tomorrow (Monday) we will aim for the podium. We lost the direct qualification for the world championship in Russia, but we still hope to make it based on our ranking position.”
The Puerto Rican technical director remarked in turn that “Cuba has been one of the powers in NORCECA because of its great capacity to recruit players with great biotype and physical condition. On our side we have good players who need these experiences in order to grow and make an impact. We are happy with this project.”
Arturo Iglesias, captain of the Puerto Rican team, said: “It was difficult to overcome Cuba’s strength, we came from behind on several occasions, but our patience paid, we focused on scoring one point at a time and trusting our skills.”
In other matches, Mexico fell 0-3 (22-25, 17-25 and 18-25) in the other semifinal against Canada, which will compete for the gold medal Monday against the Puerto Ricans.
According to the rules, the winners of the gold and silver medals will qualify for the FIVB World Championship to be held in Russia next year, where the teams will get ranking points for the 2023 Pan American Games in Chile.
Cuba is the current champion and maximum winner in the history of men’s volleyball in the NORCECA Confederation with 16 titles, followed by the United States (9) and Canada (1).
