Puerto Rico still unable to recover in third week – 2011 FIVB World League
The first time qualifier of the FIVB World League, Puerto Rico is down with continuous defeats in the competition.
The 2011 FIVB World League was kicked off on May 27 and has now entered the third week. Puerto Rico started the campaign in Pool A alongside Brazil, United States and Poland. The head coach Carlos Cardona’s team has appeared in five matches but couldn’t
achieve success in any of the matches so far. Despite of playing all their matches at home, the team has failed to profit any advantage.
Puerto Rico came across Poland in the third-week opener. Poles travelled all the way to the city of San Juan in Puerto Rico and installed their bases at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum. The host of the Final Round of the 2011 FIVB World League, Poland scored
an impressive victory against Puerto Rico on Friday, June 10. The visitors posted 3-0 (25-21, 25-23, and 25-14) on board and claimed the match. The European Team launched its authority at the net and outclassed home side.
The home side opened the match with lots of ambitions and expectations of fans. They served through Mozdzonek Marcin and tried to build an early pressure on the opponents. Somehow, they found a strong rivalry in the form of Polish team. Poland worked out
powerful serves and their good passing enabled them to lead the score. Bartosz Kurek showed no mercy and stormed opponents’ half with groundbreaking shots. He promptly put his team in lead and denied Puerto Rico’s dominance. The home players struggled to break
the rhythm of Poles but it was not an easy task, was it?
Poland continued with success and the scoreboard showed 14-9 at the second technical timeout. They remained the same course and didn’t stop adding more points. Puerto Rico’s Hector Soto and Jose Rivera formed a combination and put up good effort in minimizing
the gap of points. The hard work paid off and Puerto Rico came really close to Poland at 18-17. However, the Poles brought more ferocity in attack and secured opening set at 25-21.
After dropping the opening set, Puerto Rico put more effort in second set. They picked up a lead of 3-1 in the early few minutes via a block and ace. Poles played in their usual style and looked for come-back. They re-took the lead at 8-6, while Puerto Rico
lagged behind. It was continuous struggle for Puerto Rico as Poland hit points after points. Puerto Rican setter Angel Perez was highly applauded by fans for his great effort. He helped his team with bump-passes and minimized the gap to 10-9. Afterwards, the
game progressed with narrow gap of points but Poland controlled the operations. Puerto Rico lagged behind and dropped the second set with 2-point deficit (23-25).
Third set of the game was totally in the grip of Polish team. They played in full confidence and added consecutive points. There was no stopping for Poland in third set. Puerto Rico appeared irresistible to them. Poles rallied past Puerto Rico with 9 points.
Third set ended with the final score of 25-14 and Poland walked away with victory.
Zbigniew Bartman of Poland was the top-scorer of the match. He clipped 15 points via his killing spikes and deadly aces. Likewise, Bartosz Kurek helped his team’s score with 13 valuable points. Kurek is the top scorer of the tournament so far. He has maintained
a perfect record of registering 91 points in five matches. Piotr Nowakoski supported Poland’s score with eight tallies.
In the Puerto Rican team, Jose Rivera and captain Hector Soto went to the double digits. They scored 11 and 10 points respectively, while Victor Rivera of Puerto Rico contributed 9 points.
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