Rwanda’s U19 volleyball national team continued its losing streak at the ongoing FIVB Youth World Championships in Mexico in a classification match played on Thursday evening.
Algeria earned their first victory at FIVB Boys U19 World Championship against debutants, Rwanda in straight sets 3-0. The Algerian team won 25-19, 25-22, and 25-18.
Larbi Hadroug was Algeria’s top scorer with 14 points while Akram Dekkiche scored 12 and Roubai Boumediene finished with 7 including 4 aces.
On the Rwandan side, Samuel Niyogisubizo Tyson led the offensive with 12 points and 2 blocks. His teammate Elias Ndagano finished with 10 points and blocked successfully a couple of times.
Rwanda had defeated Algeria previously at the African championship; however the Algerians improved to look like the more superior at the World Championships.
Rwanda’s head coach Jean Marie Nsengiyumva, said, “Congratulations to Algeria. They played a very good match. They showed a good block and defense and made fewer mistakes. We made more mistakes and failed in reception and failed to block.”
The team captain Jacques Iradukunda added, “This was a very difficult match. We had played against them before at the African championship, but they played better tonight. They looked so strong and competitive, congratulations to them.”
In the quarter-final matches, Brazil beat Finland 3-2 (25-20, 25-12, 29-31, 27-29, 15-12), Cuba beat Russia 3-0 (26-24, 25-21, 25-20).
Argentina, China and France all won in straight sets over Mexico (25-16, 25-14, 25-20), Chile (25-17, 25-20, 25-17) and Korea (25-23, 25-19, 25-17) respectively. Asian champions Iran needed four sets to outlast African champions, Egypt 25-14, 25-21, 20-25, 25-23.
By Peter Kamasa, The New Times