LEON – An­tigua & Bar­bu­da’s se­nior men’s vol­ley­ball team faced a for­mi­da­ble chal­lenge to open their XVI­II Pan-Amer­i­can Cup cam­paign, falling in straight sets to a dom­i­nant Cuban squad in Group A ac­tion in Mex­i­co on Tues­day.

The Caribbean side, while show­ing flash­es of spir­it­ed re­sis­tance, was ul­ti­mate­ly over­pow­ered by the Cuban force. The match con­clud­ed with a de­ci­sive score­line of 25-19, 25-10, and 25-17 in favour of Cu­ba.

De­spite the loss, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da demon­strat­ed re­silience dur­ing sev­er­al ral­lies but were un­able to con­sis­tent­ly con­tain Cu­ba’s of­fen­sive fire­pow­er and tac­ti­cal ex­e­cu­tion through­out the con­test.

The open­ing day of the tour­na­ment was packed with sur­pris­es and de­ci­sive vic­to­ries. In oth­er key match­es, Chile se­cured a 3-1 win over the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, while Cana­da al­so won 3-1 against Puer­to Ri­co.

In a no­table up­set, Venezuela swept the Unit­ed States in straight sets. Host na­tion Mex­i­co made a strong state­ment by rout­ing Suri­name 3-0, and Colom­bia de­liv­ered a clean 3-0 vic­to­ry over Guatemala.

The tour­na­ment for­mat di­vides teams in­to three groups, with ad­vance­ment to the knock­out round de­ter­mined by the fi­nal group stand­ings.

The “Ben­na Boys” have lit­tle time to dwell on the open­er, as they face a quick turn­around with a cru­cial match against the Unit­ed States on Wednes­day.

Their group stage jour­ney con­cludes with a clash against Venezuela on Thurs­day, as they fight for a spot in the next round be­fore the tour­na­ment con­cludes on Au­gust 31st.

CMC