Dominicans will face Venezuela for fifth place at Barranquilla

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia, August 1, 2018. - Dominican Republic prevailed over Guatemala 3-0 (25-19, 25-19, 25-20) and will face Venezuela for fifth place of the men's volleyball tournament of the 2018 Barranquilla XXIII Central American and Caribbean Games at Humberto Perea Coliseum.

Dominican Republic controlled Guatemala with powerful attacks and is set to face Venezuela on the last day of competition for fifth place; they faced each other in pool-play with Venezuela winning in five sets. Guatemala will meet Trinidad and Tobago for seventh place.

Dominicans came out on top the Central Americans with huge 46-29 advantage in spikes, 9-5 in blocks and 6-1 in aces. Dominican Republic finished with 23 unforced errors and Guatemala with 14.

Wing spiker Henry Lopez led Dominican’s offense with 22 points including 18 kills and 2 blocks, and opposite Tapia Henry added 18 points including 14 attacks and 2 aces. Wagner Chacon with 9 points was Guatemala’s best scorer.

Henry López spoke “we performed well; we are working to get back on winning track because we finished the preliminary round with 0-3 record and we couldn’t achieve our goal to finish among the finalists. Today our line-up was the younger players so they can work more and gain experience for the following matches. Guatemala has a good defense but they aren’t so tall to attack, still they put us in a jam. Tomorrow against Venezuela will be really hard because we lost to them in five sets in the preliminary round, it was really close”.

Venezuelan Jose Gutierrez, head coach for Dominican Republic indicated that this is a sample of the difficult group they had to face “teams from our pool are in the top four. We must improve by working more as a team, despite all the bad things of playing for fifth place is that we have talented player to work with. After we finish here, we’ll compete in the Pan American Cup and we are aiming to qualify for the Lima Pan American Games, and that the team continues to add and grow. Tomorrow will be a rematch against Venezuela and we will face them with commitment, seriousness and responsibility to finish fifth place”.