Dominicans achieve second triumph in NORCECA U-21

HAVANA, Cuba, August 28, 2018 - Dominican Republic beat Guatemala 3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-22) and added its second victory in the Norceca Sub-21 Men's Volleyball Tournament and at least secured a place in the quarterfinals of a tournament that grants a single ticket for the FIVB 2019 World Championship in this category.

In this challenge of group A stood out the wing spiker Bayron Valdez, who contributed to the winning team 26 points, while teammates, the wing spiker Jairo Pérez and the center Dawilin Méndez contributed 11 and 10 units, respectively.

For the Central Americans the most productive was the opposite Edgar Maldonado (13) who was followed by David Ismalej (11) in a match in which the people of Quisqueya had the advantage in all the foundations of the game such as attack (45-32), blocking (4) -2) and service (7-2).

"We adjusted the reception and the attack, today we got better. There are times when we low the level because of the overconfidence and you do not win until point 25. We must correct that attitude of relaxing in front of weak teams and here there is no one less strong, all of them come to win. You are really used to tougher matches, so you relax with the apparent little ones and give a pale demonstration. Tomorrow is against Cuba, more or less of our level and I think it should be a good match," said José Dante Mañón, Dominican coach.

His captain Bayron Valdez said that "the team played well, but still needs to raise the level and sometimes the spirit, our rivals are not very tall, but they dominated, they did it correctly and they made us try hard, they have good control of the hand and sometimes it was difficult for us to block, but I know we can unite and give more of ourselves".

Diego A. Ralon, captain of Guatemala, stated: "They have a very strong player, Bayron, with good serve and he hits very high, but we managed at some moments of the match to make our game and we took the score with figures of 23, 19 and 22, which for us is very good, but we continue making unforgivable mistakes, we hope to be much better tomorrow to beat Barbados and advance to the quarterfinals. "

On the other hand, Luis F. Castañeda, technical director of the Central Americans, rated the duel of very beautiful, "we played a good game, unfortunately we made mistakes as serves that failed and in the receipt that cost us points to win the set, all the opposite of the attack, I think it was good and we fought each partial, we just have to keep working to find the win tomorrow "