Spain defeats Puerto Rico by 3-0: Pool B - FIVB Volleyball Men´s Junior World Championship
Spain and Puerto Rico were up against each other in a Pool B fixture of the FIVB Volleyball Men´s Junior World Championship that is currently taking place in Brazil. The match between the two sides took place on the 2nd of August at the Caio Martins
Gymnasium, Niteroi. What followed was the second victory for the Spanish side as they made a clean sweep of their opponents.
Not only did the Spanish win the match in three back to back sets, they won the day in the most decisive fashion. The first set did not take long to end as the Spanish went on a blitzkrieg against the almost amateurish performance of the Puerto Rican team.
The Puerto Ricans improved their game in the second set but the effort was still not enough to upset the Spanish from securing a win. Likewise, the third set of the game saw the Spanish bag the set with relative ease and win the match at the following final
set scores: 25-7, 25-15 and 25-18.
The Spanish coach, Francisco Hervás, made the following comments at the press conference after his team had won the match: “We did play a serious game. Our team stayed focused from the beginning. They gave us a lot of opportunities to score points and we
took advantage. Our job was to keep them under pressure the whole game and never let down."
On the other hand, the Puerto Rican coach, Carlos Rodriguez, gave the following statements: “Spain is a very technical team and they play at a high level. Unfortunately, we were under a lot of pressure for a victory. We didn’t have good receptions. We have
to go on working to get better for the second phase."
The start of the opening set of the game saw the Spanish side take the lead at 4-0 before the Puerto Ricans could make any head way. However, any plans for a victory were spoiled by the Spanish Francisco Ruiz as he tallied 10 consecutive points for his team
while serving that took the lead to 22-4. It was only a matter of time before Spain was able to win the opening set at 25-7.
Spain had the lead early on in the second set at 5-0 which went on until 8-4. The Puerto Ricans could not get into a leading position till the second technical time out as the Spanish were still leading at 16-8. Despite the fact that the Puerto Ricans tried
to turn the tables, they could not secure a win and lost to Spain by 15-25.
The beginning of the third set was tight as the Puerto Ricans seemed determined to take the match towards a fourth set but the Spanish did not let their plans materialise and bagged the third set of the game at 25-18
Next in line for the Spanish squad is a game against the Argentinean side while the Puerto Ricans are going to be matched up with the Tunisians.
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