T&T men face Venezuela for seventh place spot

This country’s senior men’s volleyball team will conclude their involvement at the seventh Pan American Championship with a clash for seventh place against Venezuela today from 1 pm at the Volleyball Palace, located in the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Centre, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This after Mexico defeated the Nolan Tash-captained local squad 25–19, 25–14 , 25–14 in just 64 minutes in their fifth to eighth place semifinal, to advance to the fifth place match against Canada from 3 pm. For Mexico, Daniel Vargas was its main scorer with 13 points and Leonardo Manzo added nine while Marc-Anthony Honore had 11 and Ryan Stewart, eighth for the losers. In the other fifth to eighth place semifinal, Canada turned back Venezuela 25–18, 28–26, 25–20.

 

Last night in the main draw semifinals, USA came up against Dominican Republic while defending champion Brazil battled Argentina. In the two main draw quarterfinals played on Thursday night, Brazil advanced to the semifinal round after prevailing in four sets against Canada. The South Americans were able to recover from a shaky start to win by scores of 23–25, 25–16, 25–18, 25–13. Tiago Gatiboni led the winners with 14 points, followed by Mauricio Borges (13), Alan Souza Ferreira (12) and Henrique Rodriguez (11), while only the opposite Dane Pischke (10) reached the double digits for Canada.

 

Dominican Republic secured a ticket to the playoffs of the FIVB World League after out-dueling Mexico 23–25, 25-19, 25–21, 30–28 in an exciting second quarterfinal. The young Mexico team offered strong resistance against a local team that didn’t slow down after losing the first set and claimed a victory that earned the right to play in the qualification playoffs for the annual men’s event of FIVB. The other semifinalists—Brazil, United States and Argentina—are already qualified to next year’s FIVB World League based on their positions at this year’s event.