Cuban U23 Volleyball Team
Havana, September 4 (JIT) - The Cuban national team started with a 3-1 win over Chile in the opening of the Women's U-23 Volleyball 2024 Pan American Cup at the Xalapa International Velodrome in Veracruz, Mexico.
The challenge was sealed 19-25, 25-23, 27-25 and 25-13 in which they dominated in attack (45-42), however they were behind in blocking (8-14) and points on serves (7-8), while the South Americans committed many more errors of their own (36-22).
Corner player Whitney James led her team's offense with 16 points (14 attacks, 2 aces), and opposite Lisania Grafort contributed 10 tallies. With eight each were Edisleidys Reyes, Yalain de la Peña and Thainalien Leyva.
Chilean opposite Petra Schwartzman was the top scorer of the match with 29 points (21 attacks, 5 blocks, 3 aces), Dominga Aylwin had 11 and center Maria Ignacia Nielsen 10.
Whitney, the captain of Cuba, told the website that "the key to recover was patience, a lot of patience. We concentrated on correcting our mistakes and calming down, and focused on our game. This is the first match of the tournament and it is normal that we have had ups and downs, one thing is to train and another is to play a match".
Chilean leader Camila Donoso recognized that "Cuba closed extraordinarily, they started to block us, especially at the end of the match and that made it difficult for us to score and consequently frustrated us. It is only the first match, we are used to the pressure of coming from behind and I am sure we will recover".
In the other result of the A division, Dominican Republic defeated Costa Rica 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 25-17) in the opening match with a wide advantage in points from attacks (45-22) and minimal difference in blocks (6-5) and also in services (2-1) and one more error of their own (23-22).
In the B division, Peru debuted with success against Nicaragua 3-1 (25-17, 21-25, 25-16, 25-15) and Mexico against Suriname, curiously in three identical sets of 25-13.
This Wednesday, Cuba will face Costa Rica, Dominican Republic will face Chile, Peru will face Suriname and Mexico will face Nicaragua in the competition that will grant tickets to the II Junior Pan American Games of Asuncion 2025 for the two best teams of the Norceca region.
