Dominican Republic are the NORCECA U-20 Champions

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, August 26, 2012 - Dominican Republic won the gold medal by defeating Mexico 3-1 (25-19, 25-21, 24-26, 25-11) at the NORCECA Women’s Junior Continental Championship on Sunday night at Managua’s “Polideportivo Esapaña”.

This is the first title for Dominican Republic in the history of the competition with its seven previous editions. Dominicans have reached the gold match in the past four editions against USA. For Mexico this is their second silver medal.

Brayelin Martinez tallied 26 points leading the Dominicans to win the gold in a match that lasted 1 hour and 43 minutes; Gaila Gonzales contributed with 11 and Jineiry Martinez chipedd in with 10 points. Lizbeth Sainz was the best for the Mexican side with 17 points, followed by Alejandra Isiordia with 16 and Jocelyn Urias with 14. Mexicans had 36 errors against only 15 from Dominican Republic.

Pamela Soriano captain for the champions, said:“First I congratulate Mexico; I am very proud because we reached our goal, proud of my team, of our coach and myself; in the third set we loosen up because we thought we had already won.”

“We lacked concentration and courage, this last characterizes Mexico, we were able to do better in the third but not enough, it was a difficult match,” commented Alejandra Isiordia.

“I am very happy but the recognition is to the team and its technical staff because I just came back from London and incorporated to their job,” said Wagner Pacheco. He ended by congratulating Mexico because they were the sensation of the tournament, “thank God these two teams were in the final because we’ve been working hard, it would have been unfair otherwise.”

Estanislao Vacino Mexico’s coach expressed: “There is no doubt that the best team of the whole tournament won the title, congratulations to Dominican Republic and as for us, we did a good job against Cuba but the team needs more experience to define matches just like this one. I like to call things by their name and we took the third set because of a mistake in refereeing.  Mexico has done its part qualifying this year to two world championships.”

Ranking Final  1. Dominican Republic 2. Mexico  3. United States 4. Costa Rica 5. Cuba 6. Nicaragua 7. Guatemala 8. Trinidad & Tobago 9. Antigua & Barbuda.