Cuba loses to United States at VNL

 

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 16 (ACN) The Cuban men's team said goodbye to the first week of group two of the Volleyball Nations League with a 1-3 loss to the United States, at the Maracanazinho stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

According to the International Federation's website www.fivb.com, the Cubans were better, but only by the minimum, in attacking 48 points to 47, and by two in blocking (13-11), but they were behind in serving (4-7) and gave up five more points due to their own errors (28-23), figures that guaranteed the success of the Americans with scores of 25-22, 25-18, 18-25 and 25-23.

The official individual statistics of the tournament show that Caribbean Marlon Yant was the top scorer of the match with 21 points, 16 in attack, three in blocking and two in service, supported by Jose Masso (17/14-3-0).

The other three players who accumulated double digits were the US players Cooper Robinson (18/12-4-2), Jeffrey Jendryk (13/10-2-1) and Ethan Chaplin (11/91-1).

With this result, the disciples of Cuban technical director Jesus Cruz concluded this phase with one victory and three setbacks.

The win was against the hosts, 3-2 and the losses were against Slovenia, 1-3 and Ukraine, 2-3.

The United States closed with two wins against Iran (3-2) and Cuba (3-1) and two losses to Ukraine (0-3) and Slovenia (1-3).

The other two weeks for Cuba will be in Belgrade, with the participation of Germany, Serbia, Netherlands and Argentina, and Gdansk, with Bulgaria, Poland, France and China, in that order.

The Caribbean team aims to finish among the top eight of the demanding competition and surpass the ninth place achieved in the previous edition of 2024, for which they will have to improve a lot in the following and more complicated stages.