Taiwan late on Saturday defeated Spain for a best-ever third-place finish in the FIVB Volleyball Boys’ Under-17 World Championship in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Taiwan claimed the third-place spot after a narrow 3-2 (25-17, 16-25, 25-23, 21-25, 15-12) win in the bronze medal match.
“To be honest, I don’t know how our kids managed to make it this far,” coach Tseng Yung-an said, referring to Taiwan’s victories over Puerto Rico and Brazil in the round of 16 and quarter-final respectively.
Photo courtesy of FIVB via CNA
Taiwan lost 3-0 to Italy in the semi-finals on Friday, before bouncing back to beat Spain. Italy went on to win the championship, after defeating Argentina 3-2 in the final.
Tseng said the team “wanted to win too badly” in the third place playoff, and ended up dropping the second and fourth sets after winning the first and third, setting up a decisive fifth set.
Taiwan was led by a dominant performance by opposite hitter Huang Pin-yen, who scored 30 points against Spain and a team-leading 185 points during the tournament, making him the top scorer of the competition, ahead of Spain’s Cesar Irache Camacho with 146 points.
“Since we could not compete with our opponents in terms of height, we had to make sure we played smart in each of our matches, but I never expected would have this kind of success,” Huang said.
Captain Tsai Tung-cheng said the team had drawn inspiration from Taiwan’s U-17 girls’ team, who finished fourth — also an all-time best — in the FIVB Volleyball Girls’ Under-17 World Championship in Lima, Peru, earlier last week.
Huang said he would have been satisfied even if the team had lost, due to the high level of competition and the likelihood that many of their opponents were future Olympians.
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