U.S. sweeps Costa Rica in the Pan American Cup – Volleyball news
The U.S. women’s national volleyball team played against Costa Rica on Monday at Juarez, Mexico in a fixture of the Pan American Cup. The US squad was able to defeat their rivals by making a clean sweep over them at 25-20, 25-10 and 25-8.
The 10th Women’s Pan American Cup has seen the US women’s team now win four in a row since the tournament started. The U.S. is going strong without a single defeat in the tournament. Interestingly, the situation is reversed for the Costa Rican
side as they have not had a single win in any of their matches so far.
The first set of the game was the most competitive of all three sets. Costa Rica was able to take the lead early on at 2-0 but the Americans quickly neutralised the advantage. The U.S. was able to push past the Costa Ricans and lead by 5-3 but the Costa
Ricans did not give up and got into a leading position again at 6-5. After two time-outs, the U.S. squad had the lead with them at 15-10 but the Costa Ricans were in hot pursuit up to 17-16. After this point, the Americans scored consecutive points, bringing
the score board to show 22-19 and eventually bagging the opening set of the game at 25-20.
Capitalising on the momentum built by ending the initial set of the game on a winning note, the Americans were able to come out strong and take advantage at 4-0. A time-out did not work for the Costa Ricans as the U.S. squad was able to extend their advantage
to 6-0. After two points from the Costa Rican side, the U.S. took a time-out with the score board showing 8-2 in favour of the Americans. The U.S. side was able to score points easily while it was getting difficult for the Costa Ricans to make any progress.
Therefore, it came as no surprise when the Americans ended the second set of the game at 25-10.
As with the first two sets of the game, the third set started off with an American lead at 3-0 which they were able to extend to 16-6. A second-time out did not help the Costa Ricans break the rhythm of their opponents and ended up losing the third and final
set of the game to the at 8-25.
Next in line for the U.S. team is a match against Brazil that is scheduled to be played tonight at the Universidad Autonoma de Cuidad Juarez. If the Americans manage to stay undefeated against the top ranked Brazilians, they will secure themselves a direct
ticket into the semi-finals while the second and the third ranked teams in the pool will be meeting for the quarter-final round on the 7th July.
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