HAVANA. Cuba, June 6, 2023.- Puerto Rico defeated Dominican Republic in straight sets 25-10, 25-20 and 25-16 in their first success in pool A at the U21 Men’s Norceca Pan American Cup at the city capital wide Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum.
Puerto Ricans prevailed in every element over a Dominican squad without their usual combative energy and who showed early in the game their poor passing and reception, which their opponents took advantage of.
Outside hitter Axel Meléndez with 13 pinta and 11 from middle Janlvar Figueroa were the most outstanding players of their team, while Dominican captain Ronny Molina tallied 12, despite no having his best day, just like his teammates.
Carlos Rodríguez,Puerto Rican coach rated the match as refreshing and valued that “Dominican Republic is a group with many resources, with time they will improve their performance. We were able to establish our game on serves. Two of our middles will arrive today Tuesday. Against Canada we played only with one middle. We are improving our rhythm”.
Team captain Antonio Luis Feliciano said “today we had well elaborated game plan, because we were able to study Dominican Republic and we saw they don’t dominate their passing too much, so we needed to get them out of system”. We felt tired, yesterday the match lasted three hard, but after this win we will rest better”.
Ronny Molina, Dominican captain said “we wanted the victory but it wasn’t possible. We have much more to give and we didn’t and we committed too many technical errors which caused us the loss”.
Coach Dante Mañón regreted his team’s performance. “We didn’t attack as we should against an opponent who was tired from yesterday, but the tension took over them and they weren’t visible on court. Our reception was null, I had to switch the setter twice and both did bad. They are tall and it was hard to attack from the outside. Tomorrow’s match against Canada is crucial”.
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