SAN JUAN, Argentina, August 9, 2023.- United States upset the world’s number one youth team Bulgaria, at the FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship quarterfinals in San Juan on Wednesday.
The Americans will take on France in semifinals; Koreans will challenge Iran in Thursday’s semifinals.
FIVB U19 Boys’ World Ranking leaders Bulgaria failed to recover fast enough from the five-set battle with Brazil that had finished less than 15 hours earlier and fell victim to a well-prepared American team that managed to overcome the opponents in straight sets, 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 28-26), mostly thanks to their blocking effort (13 against nine), but also with more precision in their actions (13 errors against 19) and a slightly more productive offence (45 successful spikes against 43). The Europeans outserved the opponents with three aces against one.
Bulgaria did put up a fight in each of the sets. In the third, they even broke away with a 7-2 lead only to lose it deep into overtime on a first-tempo swing by middle blocker Joshua Aruya for the match winner. USA’s Sean Kelly and Bulgaria’s Kristian Titriyski shared the top-scorer honors with 19 points each. Finn Kearney added another 13 for the winners, including four kill blocks, while Bulgarian middle Kostadin Kozelov impressed with five of those also to finish with 13 points.
In Thursday’s second semifinal, at 21:00 local time (midnight UTC), Korea will engage in an all-Asian duel with Iran.
Further down the bracket, in the quarterfinal playoffs of the race for the ninth place, Brazil downed Puerto Rico in a 3-0 (25-9, 25-11, 25-18) straight-setter and progressed to an encounter with Mexico, who squeezed out a hard-fought 3-2 (25-23, 17-25, 23-25, 25-22, 15-12) victory over Colombia.
Wednesday’s action started with Chile’s first win of the tournament. In their last match in San Juan, the South Americans delivered a narrow 3-2 (25-15, 17-25, 19-25, 25-20, 17-15) victory over winless Costa Rica in the race for the distribution of the places from 17th to 19th.
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