Venezuela sweeps Puerto Rico in FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament match
The third day of the FIVB Men's World Olympic Qualifying Tournament started on June 5 in the capital of Japan.
One of the matches saw the Venezuelan team compete with the Puerto Rican side at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gym. Despite the fact that both the squads put on a good show, the Venezuelan maintained an edge all through that enabled them to make a clean sweep at
the following final set scores, 25-20, 25-20 and 25-21.
The Venezuelan coach Roberto Garcia expressed his joy at the win in the following words, “I am happy about today's game. I was satisfied with the way the players carried out our tactical plan. We are making fewer mistakes now in blocking and receiving. Our
level of performance is up. We have a good flow.”
On the other hand, the Puerto Rican coach Carlos Cardona made the following comments at the press conference that was conducted after the end of the match, “We played a bad match. Our motivation was low. Our interior defence was not good. We must find out
why we lost. I will review the match. We didn't have enough attacks. We can't win with this kind of form. There were too few blocks.”
Kevin Pinerua helped the Venezuelan side in bagging three consecutive sets by tallying the most points in the match as he scored 14. Teammate Luis Arias helped Pinerua by adding 12 points of his own. On the other hand, the highest score from the Puerto Rican
side was 11, which was made by Jose Rivera.
The Puerto Ricans were able to put on a burst of speed in the opening set and take the lead at 5-4 which they stretched till 7-6. Eventually, the Venezuelans were able to make the match reach a tie at 16-16. After that point, the Puerto Ricans fell behind
as the Venezuelans steadily moved towards a win at 25-20.
The second set also saw the Puerto Ricans take the advantage and they stayed ahead till 13-12 but the Venezuelans had the lead at 16-13 at the coming of the second technical time out. Before long, Venezuela was able to bag another set at 25-20.
With two sets down, the motivation of the Puerto Ricans decreased significantly and Venezuela was able to secure the third frame comfortably at 25-21.
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