Dominicans score fantastic victory to win gold medal

VARNA, Bulgaria, June 19, 2016 - Spearheaded by the attacks of Brayelin Elizabeth Martinez, the Dominican Republic achieved a fantastic comeback from two sets down to master a 3-2 (21-25, 23-25, 25-18, 25-20, 15-11) victory over Poland to win the gold medal at the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2016 Group 2.

The triumph earned Dominican Republic a promotion to Group 1 for the 2017 season. Poland took the silver and Puerto Rico claimed the bronze leaving hosts Bulgaria off the podium.

Martinez spiked successfully 24 times to top the scorers’ chart on her team. Bethania de la Cruz and Lisvel Eve added 19 and 11 points, respectively, while Yonkaira Peña came off the bench to contribute 8 valuable points.

The Dominican team began its campaign with a 3-2 loss to Bulgaria and went on to record seven wins in a row including three five-set victories over Argentina, Czech Republic and Poland.

Marcos Kwiek, coach of the Dominican Republic: “First, I want to congratulate all the girls. It was actually teamwork. Everybody put a little bit of what they have to do. It is also very important that there are two Caribbean countries on the podium which is a great achievement for world volleyball.”

Bethania De La Cruz, captain of the Dominican Republic: “We are very pleased that we have earned the gold. We started a little bit slow, but we were able to step hard and to continue like that. Now we are very, very happy to go to the higher group next year.”