Bahrain has claimed a thrilling five-set victory over Puerto Rico tonight as teams continued to battle hard for a place in the knockout rounds of the 2017 FIVB Boys’ U19 World Championship.

The tournament hosts came back from a set down to beat their South American rivals 3-2 (23-25, 25-7, 25-10, 24-26, 15-10) in a see-saw match that could have gone either way.

The result earned Bahrain a berth in the knockout rounds where they will be one of four teams who will be coming out of Pool A in the preliminaries.

"We are very pleased to win this game," Bahrain head coach Yousef Khalifa said. "We have worked hard for this and to see all our hard work bring these good results is great.

"We now have Tunisia in our last game; they will have to win to have any chance of qualifying so we expect them to play at their best.

"We want to win this game as well because we want to keep our momentum heading into the next round and we also need this to improve our rankings."

Sayed Alabbar spearheaded a balanced attack for Bahrain with 20 big points including three aces. Alabbar also had five blocks. Mahmood Abdulhusain contributed 15 points and also had three aces.

Mohamed Jasim and and Hasan Mohamed each finished with 14 points, with Jasim registering three blocks and Mohamed four. Hasan Haider added 13 points to go with an impressive five blocks.

Bahrain’s final Pool A game against Tunisia is scheduled for a 7pm start, Tuesday night.

Joining Bahrain in the next stage from Pool A will be powerhouses USA, who were made to sweat today by an inspired Tunisia in the other divisional contest. The highly favoured Americans lost the opening two sets before turning things around with a two-point win in the third en route to finally closing out the match.

Source : BNA