Osniel Mergarejo

Havana, July 14 (JIT)-- The Cuban team swept its rival team from Canada and scored its third victory in a row at the Nayarit 2022 Men's Volleyball Norceca Pan American Cup Final Six, held in the Mexican city of Tepic.

The match ended in just over an hour with scores of 25-17, 25-18 and 25-21, and superiority for the Antilleans in attack (34-27), blocking (4-2) and service (6-2), although they committed more errors than the northerners (31-25).

Osniel Mergarejo, who earned the start after his performance on Tuesday against the United States, replacing Marlon Yant from the third set to the fifth, was the top scorer with 12 points, all from attacks.

He was followed by fellow corner player Miguel Angel Lopez (10/7-1-2), middle blocker Robertlandy Simon (8/6-2-0); another regular debutant, opposite Miguel Angel Sanchez (7/4-1-2); middle blocker Roamy Alonso (4/3-0-1) and setter Adrian Goide (3/2-0-1).  

The Cubans' rivals entered the court preceded by victories over the United States and Mexico, but this time they could not do much. 

Only in the third set did they manage to tie the score 12-12, but five consecutive goals by the Caribbeans stopped their inspiration and they were never again able to catch up. Their best man, Fynnian McCarthy, did not reach double digits (9/8-1-0).

The Cubans, who began their string of victories against the Dominicans (3-0) and the Americans (3-2), will face this Thursday the team of Puerto Rico (8 p.m.), which accumulates as Canada two successes and a setback after their stumble this Wednesday against the United States (1-3).

Mergarejo commented to the official website of the lid that "we are taking the rhythm of the tournament to add points and generate more confidence for the second important event we have this season (challenger in South Korea), because we are a team that for two years we have not played together.

He added that "Canada is a team that tactically plays well, but we are characterized by our power in serving and attacking. We had to use our strength to overcome them".

Coach Nicolás Vives said that "we are all happy, we have been getting into rhythm little by little since we have only been training together for a short time". He described the match as a good one "to achieve our objective, but acknowledged that "we still have to play better, block better too; we have to work on some difficulties, the important thing is the victory".

Canadian Fynnian McCarthy declared that "for us it is a question of mentality, we were paralyzed from the service line and we were not aggressive, we were passive and tried to put the ball and not to score by putting pressure. A change of mentality would definitely do us a lot of good, we can't expect to win by missing so many serves".