TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 18, 2024.- Canada advanced to the gold medal match of the Girls U19 NORCECA Continental Championship after a spectacular five-set semifinal victory, 3-2 (25-19, 7-25, 24-26, 25-21, 15-11) over Mexico at the Jorge Galeano Gymnasium in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Canada will play in the final match on Saturday at 6:00 pm against the winner between United States and Puerto Rico; before that, Mexico will seek to win its fifth bronze medal in the history of the event at 4:00 pm against the loser.
This is the second time Canada has reached the gold medal match; in the previous edition in 2018, here in Honduras, they lost to the United States.
Despite Mexico having the advantage in attacks (57-52) and service points (8-5), Canada emerged victorious with a significant advantage in blocks (16-8). Canada conceded more points on errors than Mexico (29-23).
Chloe Bradley was Canada’s top scorer with 21 points (13 attacks, a match-high of 6 blocks, 2 aces). Sol Henson added 20 points (19 attacks, one block), and Carmen Waye contributed 14 points (10 attacks, 4 blocks).
Mexico’s Alejandra Cruz led all scorers with 25 points, all on kills. Angélica Torres scored 17 points (15 attacks, one block, one ace), and Andrea Ravell finished with 13 points (8 attacks, 3 blocks, 2 aces).
Mexico started strong, jumping to an early 4-0 lead, but Canada found its rhythm to contest a close first set, with the win going to the Canadians thanks to their blocking led by Chloe Bradley. Mexico tied the match with an overwhelming 25-7 over Canada in the second set, with the offensive efforts of Angélica Torres, Naomi Cruz, and Aitana Rettke. In the third set, Canada reached set point after a block by Bradley on Cruz (24-23), who then responded with a powerful kill to tie at 24. Mexico won the set on two Canadian errors. In the fourth set, after being tied at 6 points, Canada kept the advantage. Canadians Sol Henson and Carmen Waye took control of the offense, forcing a fifth set that Canada controlled.
Gina Schmidt, head coach of Canada: “Our team did a good job of sticking to the game plan, we executed that well. Whoever we face in the gold medal match, we played them both in pool-play, so hopefully we’ll learn from our fist match against them”.
Ignacio Ramírez, head coach of Mexico: “I think in the fourth set we completely dropped the pace we had been maintaining, and that marked the difference. Our morale declined, and we couldn’t recover some easy balls that we couldn’t finish. We are going to fight for the bronze medal; we need to keep our heads up.”
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