Cuba score smooth victory over Barbados

HAVANA, Cuba, May 21, 2014 - Cuba debuted with a victory over Barbados in straight sets (25-18, 25-19, 25-14) in the nightcap of the opening day at the FIVB Men’s World Championship NORCECA Qualifying Tournament Pool P at Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum on Wednesday.

In a match that lasted only 64 minutes, Cuban coach Rodolfo Sánchez used all his players he said “were very tense at the beginning because seven of them do not have any experience but  I do they will show what they can do”.

“Winning always makes one happy and I liked my team’s attitude. However, you usually wants much more as we have trained hard. I am confident they will play better tomorrow,” Sanchez said.

Left-handed Rolando Cepeda was the top scorer with 15 points, followed by the middle blocker Isbel Mesa (13). Meanwhile, from Barbados none was able to score more than 5 points.

Cepeda said: “We fulfilled our goal as we won in straight sets and we made less faults than when we played in Mexico the last week. Anyway we will demand more from ourselves with each day.”

Ludger Niles, the Barbados coach, considered his team had a very poor performance in the third set. “Cuba developed a more tactical game and we were not able to make the appropriate adjustments to counterattack. Although I acknowledge it was our first match at this level and we are called to have more synchronization.

Captain, Alain London commented on the Cubans’ speed saying: “We could not stop such strategy even though in the first sets we were able to attack better”.