Peru to play Argentina for the gold at U20 Final Four

LIMA, Peru, October 18, 2014 – Peru reserved their best match for the third day of the U20 Final Gour Women’s Gatorade Cup by defeating Dominican Republic in straight sets (28-26, 25-17, 25-13) in front of about 3,000 spectators at the Eduardo Dibos Coliseum on Saturday.

Peru, undefeated in three outings, will play Argentina for the gold medal on Sunday night. Argentina swept Cuba in the first match of the day and finished in second place in the preliminary round.

The Peruvians trailed in the early stages of the three sets, but surprised climbing back to take the lead before the first technical time-out and never relinquished. The big strength of the host team showed in the attacks (49-29) and also held slight advantages of 7-5 in blocks and serves.

The top scorer of the match was Peruvian Mauilaura Frias with 20 points followed by Angela Leyva and Katherine Regalado with 12 and 11, respectively. Natalia Martinez was the best for the Dominican Republic with 14 points.

Martin Escudero, coach of Peru, stated: “We knew the match would be tough because there was some kind of pressure since the winner was going to the final. Today the girls did all we practiced and everything went well. Our blocking worked well, something we had failed too much. The important thing is that the team is improving and recovering to prepare for the worlds next year.”

Angela Leyva, captain of Peru, said: “I am very happy with the game we had. Dominican Republic is a strong team and we did everything well and that’s why we won. Now we have to continue working and improve because there are more competitions ahead and we need to be at a good level.”

Brazilian Alexandre Ceccato, coach of Dominican Republic said that “Peru is a very strong team with a very good serve and a lot of experience. We didn’t have the much needed concentration to take the match forward. Tomorrow we need to go out to play hard against Cuba and I wish Peru good luck in the final match.”

“We started well but then lost the concentration and our game and rhythm slowed down. We started to make errors and lost the match. We entered in the rhythm of Peru and could not overcome them. They played hard and did not allow us to recover,” Dominican Yocaty Perez said.