HAVANA, Cuba, October 8, 2022.- United States sealed their undefeated performance sweeping Mexico 25-19, 30-28 and 25-14 winning the Men’s U21 Pan American held at Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum.
The Americans didn’t give their rivals a chance with a steady performance, showing superiority win attacks (37-24), blocks (11-5) and serves (8-4), with five more errors (27-22) in one hour and 22-minute contest, between both teams that take home the two berths for the 2023 World Championship.
The only players scoring double digits were precisely from the champions, led by opposite Shane Wetzel, who scored 13. Outside hitter Zachary Rama added 12 and 10 by middle blocker Nyerovwome Omene.
Andy Read, United States veteran coach said “the second set was very hard, we were down and were able to recover, but the Mexicans were strong. I am happy and very proud of my team, that these 12 boys are pride of our country and represented it in this event and because it gives them the chance to play the 2023 World Championship”.
Libero Christopher Connelly expressed “it was a great match, we had a lot of fun, we gave all our energy and effort to win the gold medal; the event was incredible, very good, I liked the crowd, they gave all the energy that the tournament needed, and they inspired Mexico and Cuba”.
Mexican coach Jorge Alberto Romero explained “their performance was outstanding the entire tournament, we were expecting them to go one on one against United States, Canada or maybe Cuba, who I would’ve like to play against. The U.S. serves affected us, the reception wasn’t adequate, every effort was made. We must work in the psychological part and reception”.
Isai Castañeda, Mexican libero, said “we qualified to worlds, but our goal was set on winning the tournament and we have that bad feeling because we didn’t strive as much as we could have. We began lazy and we were like that the entire match, we tried to put pressure only during the second set, but we didn’t do our job well and in the third we committed too many errors, United States grew, they had more character than us and everything flowed more for them”.
English 
Spanish