MIAMI, Florida, August 7, 2008.- United States scored a convincing victory over Mexico and joined Puerto Rico as the two teams from the NORCECA Confederation qualified for the 2009 FIVB U-19 Boys’ World Championship.

The powerful attacks by the Americans increasely undermined the defense of the resilient Mexican side as they were on their way to a 25-21, 25-20, 25-18 triumph.

USA and Puerto Rico will be pitted to meet each other for the gold medal match on Friday. Mexico is slated to face Guatemala for the bronze.

Ian Satterfield, Taylor Sander and Dylan Davis had 14, 11 and 10 points respectively for USA. Juan Revuelta (12) was the only Mexican with double figures.

“That’s the best youth Mexican team that I have seen since I’ve been coaching,” said Andy Read of USA. “But today we were a little bit better. Our passing was good and also our serving and our setter (Oliver Deutschman) did a great job.”

And Captain Jake Kneller added: “We played hard and well. We gave everything we had to win that spot in the World Championship. We executed all the fundamentals.”

“The only difference between USA and Mexico is the size of the players. We came out to play hard but at the end the kids lost the confidence and gave up a lot of points. I don’t think we recovered totally from the loss to Puerto Rico,” said Mario Becerra, el dirigente de México.