Jamaica annuls Dominican Republic for fifth place

HAVANA, Cuba, June 29, 2016 – Jamaican team defeated Dominican Republic 3-1 (12-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-17) to reach the fifth berth of the NORCECA Boys U-19 Volleyball Championship which, since June 24th, has been held at the Sports City Coliseum.

In spite of the effort made by the strong outside hitter, Bayron Valdéz, who scored 31 and was trying to be the event best scorer, the Dominicans looked differently and did not play properly after winning relatively easy the first set to such a degree that the second Dominican player who most contributed was Fuhit Evens (6).

On the contrary, the Jamaicans attained to come from behind to take the lead in the attack (47-39), block (8-3) and service (6-2); led by Javarie James (20) and Shavar James and Jovan Thomas with 14 points each.

“Our rival has got a very good spiker (Bayron). I knew they were scoring certain number of points, but not enough to win because of the role of our middle blockers who, especially Javarie who has been magnificent, annulled the opposing defence and from then on it was easier. I am quite happy with the fifth place achieved, but I would have liked to be in semi finals”, stated Steve Davis, Jamaican coach.

“We can not leave without expressing our gratitude toward the LOC. They have been really friendly at the National Volleyball School and hopefully in the near future the bonds of sports relationships including sports exchange between both nations will be much closer.

“Jovan Thomas, captain, declared “we started a little nervous, but we got to do our game. Finally we are taking back home a lot of instructive experience and every piece of them will be put into practice to try to improve and develop the Volleyball level in Jamaica.”

Vicente Paniagua, coach of Dominican Republic, explained “with boys, it needs to work much on the psychological part to prevent it when growing up from coming to the surface as a weakness. Today’s match was aimed at winning and helping Bayron who is leading the best scorers. However they did not fulfil the planning and the result was disastrous. Hopefully they will make good use of the remaining time they still have to compete at this age category.”

Bayron, captain, a little disappointed, said “I have no clue about what happened to my team-mates. It seems they were exhausted. They did not play the game I expected as we might have prevailed over them in straight sets. Now I am sad as we should not have lost the fifth position, but from the second set on I felt they left me by myself.”