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Dominican Republic, first finalist at CACG

 

CORDOBA, Mexico, November 29, 2014 - Dominican Republic became the first finalist of the Men’s Competition at the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games.

 

Dominican Republic beat Cuba 3-1 (25-23, 25-20, 14-25, 25-20) in a battle between two coaches from Cuba, like Rodolfo Sanchez and Jose Angel Alvarez, this last one in charge of Dominican Republic.

 

Elvis Contreras commanded the Dominican offense with a total of 22 points and José Cáceres registered 17. On the Cuban side, Javier Jiménez closed with 20 and Osmany Uriarte Mestre with 13.

 

Dominican Republic had no problems to control the first two sets, however Cuba closed the third with a 16 points advantage. Cuba dominated the blocking game 14-7, while Dominican Republic closed with a 2-0 serving advantage.

 

Cuba finished with a 14-7 blocking advantage, while Dominican Republic served for 2 ases against none by Cuba, that gave up 29 points by errors against 25 given by Dominican Republic.

 

“There is not much to say. I knew it was going to be tough, but we advance and go on. We gave a very important step and now we have to work harder, because the last world will be said tomorrow,” stated Jose Alvarez, coach of Dominican Republic.

 

“We faced a rival that we had defeated many times before in official matches, in scrimmage matches. We had the goal of a gold medal, but we were lack of maturity. We are a young team. We are working for the future, and there is still one more match left and we can contend for the bronze medal,” said Rodolfo Sanchez, head coach of Cuba.

 

“I want to congratulate Dominican Republic, they gave a great match. We did not play our game as we had to. That was the key and now we have to look for the bronce medal,” said Rolando Cepeda, captain of Cuba.

 

“We feel really happy and we thank God for today’s victory. We thought that Cuba was going to be tough. A team that is very able to overcome and with a great history. We worked harder with our counterattack,” Elvis Contreras, captain of Dominican Republic said.