Havana, May 20 (ACN)-- Cuba's under 19 men's volleyball team won the silver medal by losing 1-3 to the United States in the final of the North Central American and Caribbean Championship (Norceca), based in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

According to the site www.norceca.net, this Sunday the Cubans fell against the Americans with scores of 19-25, 19-25, 25-20 and 18-25, after one hour and 38 minutes of action on the court, with a highlight for the Caribbean Yosdani Medina, top scorer of the challenge with 21 points, 20 on attack and one on serve.

The official collective statistics of the match reflect better results for the northerners in blocking, with seven points for three, the service (7-5) and their own errors that give so many to the rivals (23-32), while those of the greatest of the Antilles surpassed them in attack (51-49).

For the United States, Aleksey Mikailenko (16/15-1-0) stood out individually, followed by Andy Lázaro Marrero (12/11-0-1), and his teammates, Roman Payne (12/10-0-2) and Grant Lamourex (10/9-1-0).

The Americans led the Cubans 3-0 (25-22, 25-17 and 25-18) in an undefeated duel at the close of the preliminaries in group A.

  In that key, Cuba had 3-0 (25-12, 25-19 and 29-27) and 3-2 (19-25, 23-25, 25-21, 25-23 and 15-13) of Suriname and Canada , respectively, in the quarterfinals they beat the Dominican Republic 3-1 (25-15, 20-25, 28-26 and 25-14), and in the semifinal they won 3-2 (25-14, 22-25, 25-16, 23-25 and 15-8) to Puerto Rico.

In the fight for the bronze medal, the Puerto Rican hosts defeated Canada 3-2 (23-25, 25-20, 25-20, 20-25 and 15-9), a team that finished in fourth place, followed by Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Suriname, in that order.

  The Dominicans beat the Costa Ricans 3-2 (23-25, 25-14, 27-25, 21-25 and 15-8) in the fight for fifth place, while the Guatemalans led 3-0 (25-22 , 25-17 and 25-14) to the Surinamese for the seventh step.