Cuba loses to Colombia in Pan American Volleyball Cup (m)

 

HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 16 (ACN) The Cuban men's volleyball team lost in three sets to Colombia in the first day of the XVI Pan American Cup, a competition that will conclude this Sunday at the Astros Arena in Guadalajara, Mexico, where they will play against Peru.

According to the website www.norceca.net, the Cubans lost 24-26, 17-25 and 20-25 in one hour and 20 minutes of action on the court of the Avila Camacho Sports Complex of CODE Jalisco, where they gave up 30 points due to their own errors and 18 to their rivals.

The official statistics of the Group C match also reflect a better performance by the Colombian team in attack, 35 points to 33 and in blocking (9-6), while they were behind in serving (2-4).

The top scorers of the match were Cuba's Julio Cesar Cardenas, who accumulated 11 points, nine in attack, one in blocking and one in service, and Colombia's Agamez Liberman (11/11-0-0) and Leandro Mejias (11/8-3-0).

For Colombia, Andres Felipe Piza (10/6-4-0) also stood out, completing the quartet of players with double digits.

After the match was over, Mario Izquierdo, coach of Cuba explained "the reception was very bad and the spikers did not know how to solve in some moments. Colombia had a good serve and we didn't know how to respond to that technical element that affected us. Our complex two did not work and many of our errors were not very good.

The capital of the Cuban team Adrian Chirino declared "this is the first match as a group that we have played in these months. The Colombian team has good players and came out to play their game and we could not settle in, but it is one more experience for us. We made many mistakes and as the competition progresses we will improve".

In other results on Tuesday, Mexico defeated Peru 3-2 (23-25, 25-10, 25-15, 30-32 and 15-10) in section C, the United States defeated Puerto Rico 3-0 (26-24, 25-13 and 25-23) in section A, and Brazil defeated the Dominican Republic 3-0 (25-17, 25-17 and 25-17) in section B.