Castillo, Hooker and Lloyd to finals of Globe Awards

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, February 9, 2013 – Dominican Brenda Castillo and Americans Destinee Hooker and Carli Lloyd advanced to the final phase of the 2012 Globe Awards, a contest organized by Volleyball.it, a popular Italian website dedicated exclusively to promote volleyball.

Castillo, the best libero of the London Olympic Games women’s tournament, overcame Brazilian Fabi De Oliveira with a 55 percent of fan support to 45 in favor of the South American player.  Castillo received 372 votes to 308 for De Oliveira.

The opposite Hooker overwhelmed Russian Natalia Goncharova 75-25 (336 to 111) while the setter Lloyd defeated Japanese Yoshie Takeshita 71-29 (484 to 196).

In the next round, Castillo will go against Italian Enrica Merlo who won over compatriot Paola Croce 60-40 (274 to 185).

Hooker will be paired against Brazilian Sheilla Castro who defeated Russian Ekaterina Gamova 69-31 (364 to 163) while Lloyd will go against Thailand’s Nootsara Tomkom who won 60-40 (578 to 387) over Brazilian Fabiola Souza.

The spikers competing in the final round of voting will be Korean Kim Yeon Koung and Brazilian Jaqueline Carvalho who both won 65-35 over Italians Carolina Costagrande (389 to 209) and Lucia Bosetti (364 to 193) respectively.

The battle for the votes among the middle blockers will be between Brazilian Thaisa Menezes and Italian Valentina Arrighetti. Menezes won 68-32 (358 to 170) against French Christina Bauer while Arrighetti won 72-28 (857 to 327) over Brazilian Fabiana Claudino.

Volleyball Globe on the net is a volleyball prize yearly awarded to players who stood out more in the last calendar year, playing in a club of any national championship in the world, and with their national team.

The vote will take place in two phases.

The first will consist of a popular vote of the international Volleyball.it readers through polls published in a dedicated section of the website, with male and female players divided by role; later on, a subsequent vote of an enlarged jury, made by more than 100 volleyball journalists gathered worldwide, will have the leading value to the award of two absolute prizes.

The jury of journalists will be given a list of all male and female players included in the survey previously mentioned, asking them to indicate five absolute names in a ranking from 1st to 5th place, both for men and women.

The prize will be awarded to the best male player and the best female player in the world, and there will be partial awards for each male and female role (setter, opposite, spiker, middle blocker and libero).