LEÓN, Mexico, September 12, 2026.- Puerto Rico recovered after dropping the first set to defeat Canada 3-1 (19-25, 25-23, 25-18, 25-12) and remain unbeaten at 2-0 in Pool A of the 2026 Women’s Pan American Cup on Saturday at the Domo de la Feria in León, Guanajuato.
Canada made a strong start in its tournament debut and took the opening set 25-19. Puerto Rico responded in a tightly contested second set, closing it out 25-23 before taking control of the match. Ivania Ortiz and Valeria Vázquez powered the Puerto Rican offense in the third set as Puerto Rico pulled away for a 25-18 win.
Puerto Rico maintained its momentum in the fourth and built an early advantage. Ortiz and Vázquez continued to lead the offense as Puerto Rico steadily increased the margin before closing the match with a convincing 25-12 victory.
The statistics were balanced: Puerto Rico held a slight 50-49 advantage in attacks and 6-5 in aces, while Canada led 6-5 in blocks. The difference came in errors, with Puerto Rico benefiting from 33 Canadian errors while conceding only 18.
Ortiz and Vázquez led Puerto Rico with 17 points each. Talia Attieh was Canada’s top scorer with 14 points, while Emma Boyd added 10.
On Sunday, Canada (0-1) will face unbeaten Dominican Republic (2-0) at 6:00 p.m., while Puerto Rico (2-0) will have a rest day.
Ivania Ortiz, Puerto Rico’s top scorer: “Canada played very well against us in the first set. Our mentality throughout the tournament is to start every match aggressively without waiting to see what the other team is going to do. Today Canada did some things that we didn’t know how to handle, and we made some mistakes that hurt us, but our mindset was to clean up our game and go out and execute what we know how to do.”
Emma Boyd, Canada captain: “I think we got a little ahead of ourselves. We started playing Puerto Rico’s game and stopped playing ours. We became rushed and couldn’t slow things down or take control. But it’s only our first match. We’ve had a long training block and hadn’t played a match in three months, so maybe there were some first-match jitters. Now we have to learn from this, put the first match behind us and keep building throughout the tournament.”
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