Dominican Republic joins the U19 World Championship

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, April 29, 2019 – Host Dominican Republic outplayed Chile in a nail-biting fourth set to grab the last ticket to the FIVB World Championship available at the U19 Boys’ Pan American Volleyball Cup.

The Dominican squad claimed a 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 25-16, 26-24) victory relying on a balanced offense led by Brian Muñoz who scored 21 points, including four of the 12 blocks by the winners.

Fuhit Edouarde, the leading scorer of the competition with 112 points, contributed 18 of his own to the victory while Bryan Turbides and Dawilin Méndez added 13 and 10, respectively.

Vicente Ibarra and Manfred Borgstedt carried the load of the attack by the South Americans with 21 and 20 points, respectively.

The winners got the slight edge in attacks (53-49), aces (3-2) and unforced errors 28-30. In blocks they dominated 12-8.

The Dominican Republic joined Cuba, United States and Mexico as NORCECA teams with berths in the World Championship scheduled in Tunis next August.

Loren Rodriguez, coach of Dominican Republic: “If you train well and apply what you learned you are going to win games. The boys were so motivated for this match because of their desire to go to the world championship in Tunis. Thanks to God everything went OK and we were able to come out with the victory.”