Dominicans overpower Brazil to reach the gold medal match

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, July 13, 2018 – Host Dominican Republic, supported by a noisy partisan crowd, overpowered Brazil in straight sets 3-0 (25-16, 25-12, 25-23) to move into the final contest of the Women’s Volleyball Pan American Cup against defending champions United States.

Brayelin Martinez landed 23 points as the main offensive player for the home side followed by Yonkaira Peņa and Annerys Vargas with 12 and 10, respectively.

Bruna Honorio Marques with 10 points stood out for Brazil and Thaisa de Menezes added 7 in the losing effort.

Brayelin Martinez, player of Dominican Republic: I feel very happy with this win. I had the feeling that we were going to win 3-0. We followed the game plan designed by our coach and everything came out well. Now we have to prepare to play USA for the gold.

Dani Lins, captain of Brazil: The Dominican team served well and we didnīt play like Brazil volleyball only in the third set. For the first two sets we played apathetic but the credit should go to the Dominican team.

Marcos Kwiek, coach of Dominican Republic: Our plan was to serve aggressive to deny the ball to their setter and neutralize their attack.

The plan worked very well because they didn’t attack many times from the middle.

Wagner Fernandes, coach of Brazil: The Dominican team is better prepared than ours. It was difficult to find an ideal team. The credit for the Dominican team. We couldnīt pass well after their good serves.