Dominican Republic swept El Salvador in their debut

HAVANA, Cuba, October 5, 2014 - Dominican Republic swept El Salvador (25-15, 25-12, and 25-13) in their debut at the II Pan American U-23 Men’s Volleyball Cup at the Coliseum of the Sports City, the largest sporting facility for this discipline in the major Island with capacity for fifteen thousands spectators.

The Dominicans did not have any opposition to end up the match in only 63 minutes. They led in spikes (38-11), blocks (14-3) and services (5-0) while makiing 18 errors to 26  by their opponents of El Salvador.      

The outside hitters Luis Adames (17) and Henry Lopez (10) were the top scorers of the match.  Erick Menjivar, who tallied only four points, was the top scorer of the losing team.

The Cuban, Jose Alvarez Cutiño, head coach of Dominican Team expressed to be very happy for the winning start, “although my boys did not give all they are able as they came out with much anxiety, they are stimulated and I hope them to show their power in the upcoming matches.”

Mario Frias, captain of Dominican Republic admitted that “we played a good match, but we lacked much more spirit. We could have done it better. We did not play not even at 50 % of what we can, as I think we failed when blocking and a little when serving.”

Ricardo Rivera, coach of El Salvador, stated that it was played with fear. “Dominicans are not a superior team than what El Salvador usually is. We simply played against a Caribbean team and sometimes it is hard to control the emotional part of the boys. I saw them under pressure. At the end when they played without any pressure they had good actions, but then it was too late to react. Now we have to focus on tomorrow’s match against Mexico trying to come out as the Guatemalans did who despite they could not win, they fought.”

Armando Guatemala, captain of the Central Americans, was disappointed because his team came out quite anxious, nervous perhaps for participating at a tournament of such level. “Our team did not deal well, but we look forward to doing it better and better each match.”