The USA's second sweep in the tournament has them at the top of the Pool D standings with six points and, with that, they can no longer be caught by either Colombia, who have no points or wins, or Portugal, who could match the Americans' six points and two wins in the third round, but would still be behind in the set ratio tie-breaker. With that, the Europeans will dispute the second spot in the Round of 16 with Cuba, which earlier on Monday defeated Colombia 3-0 (25-22, 25-21, 25-20).
Gabriel Garcia and Jordan Ewert were the most important pieces in the American offense against the Portuguese, registering 12 points each - the opposite had eight kills, two blocks and two aces, while the outside hitter had 11 kills and one block. Outside hitter Ethan Champlin added another ten, with eight kills and two aces.
"We knew that Portugal had a good side-out game, they're a crafty team with a lot of different shots, so we focused a lot on our blocking and defense today," libero Erik Shoji analyzed. "Our transition game wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to get us the points we needed to win the match. We won the first two matches now and continue to improve every day, so that's great."
