Taiwan boys' volleyball team finishes 3rd in U17 World Championship

Taipei, Sept. 1 (CNA) Taiwan defeated Spain for a best-ever third-place finish in the FIVB Volleyball Boys' Under-17 World Championship in Sofia, Bulgaria on Sunday (Taipei time).

Competing as Chinese Taipei, the U17 club 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," team coach Tseng Yung-an (曾永安) said, referring to Taiwan's victories over Puerto Rico and Brazil in the round of 16 and quarterfinals, respectively.

Taiwan lost 3-0 to Italy in the semifinals on Aug. 30, before bouncing back to beat Spain on Sunday. Italy went on to win the championship, after defeating Argentina 3-2 in the finals.

Tseng noted that his 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 (黃品諺), who scored 30 points against Spain and a team-leading 185 points during the tournament.

"Since we couldn't compete with our opponents in terms of height, we had to make sure we played smart in each of our matches," Huang said. "But I never expected we'd have this kind of success."

Team captain Tsai Tung-cheng (蔡東橙) said the team had also drawn inspiration from Taiwan's U17 girls' team, which finished fourth -- also an all-time best -- in the FIVB Volleyball Girls'U17 World Championship in Lima, Peru last week.

Reflecting on the tournament, 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.