Dominican Republic adds second win at U18 Pan Am Cup

DURANGO, Mexico, May 22, 2019. - Dominican Republic added their second win in pool A after beating Honduras 3-0 (25-14, 25-4, 25-15) at the U18 Girls’ Pan American Cup, a qualifier to the FIVB World Championship being held in Durango, Mexico.

Honduras had a great beginning keeping up to Dominican Republic’s powerful presence sustaining the scores close (4-4, 8-8) in the first set up to the second technical time-out. In the second and third sets Flormarie Heredia and Romina Cornelio carried Dominican Republic into their 3-0 win.

Dominicans solid performance took over Honduras with a sizeable 40-15 margin in attacks, 8-2 in blocks and 3-1 in aces. Dominican Republic limited their errors to 15 points while scoring on 24 opponent errors.

Outside hitter Flormarie Heredia topped all scorers with 12 points on direct kills, followed by Romina Cornelio with 11 points incuding 10 kills and middle blocker Esthefany Rabit contributed with 5 blocks in her 9 points. Shantte Silieazar topped Honduras with 7 points and Rocio Duron scored 6 points.

Dominicans (2-0) will face Mexico (1-0) in their last pool A performance to move directly into the semifinals. Honduras (0-2) is up against Chile (0-1).

Leading scorer Dominican Flormarie Heredia said they had too many errors in the beginning “we committed basic mistakes, which we shouldn’t; therefore our coach was very upset with us. We quickly resolved and it showed in the second set. I mostly score on kills and that’s why I lead in scores, we hope to play well against the home team tomorrow”.

Dazly Duran captain of Honduras said they played together as a team in the first set “each one was committed in doing their job on the court and we were able to keep a good score, it was a team effort. We weren’t able to communicate well so we couldn’t keep defending and blocking, we lack experience but we continue to learn”.