Cuba and Dominican Republic will
play for the gold medal
CARTAGENA, Colombia, July 20,
2006.- Cuba and Dominican
Republic will play on Friday
night for the women’s volleyball
gold medal at the XX Central
American and Caribbean Games.
Cuba advanced to the final match
of this regional competition
while scoring an easy victory
over Mexico in straight sets by
score of 25-18-25-12, 25-12, but
the path was not as smooth for
the Dominicans who survived a
dramatic third set to beat
Puerto Rico 25-17, 18-25, 35-33,
25-18. Mexico and Puerto Rico
will meet in the first match of
Friday in the battle for the
bronze medal.
Nancy Carrillo was the top Cuban
scorer with 13 points and Daimi
Ramirez and Zoila Barros had 10
apiece. Ana Mercado scored 8
points for Mexico.
When the score was wide open,
Cuban coach Felipe Calderon used
his bench to rest some players
and keep everyone in playing
conditions.
Milagros Cabral had 17 points
for Dominican Republic and
Annerys Vargas and Cosiris
Rodriguez added 13 and 12
respectively. Karina Ocasio led
Puerto Rico with 19 points and
Eva Cruz and Aury Cruz had 16
and 11.
“We are where we wanted,” said
Yumilka Ruiz, the Cuban captain.
“Now we will go after the gold,
but not being overconfident. We
will go out to play as hard as
we know how to.”
“We came to win and despite we
lost the concentration during
part of the match, we recovered
in time to impose our game
level,” said Dominican Cabral.
Rodriguez added: “There are not
many secrets between these two
teams. We go out there to give
100 percent and the one with
lesser errors win the match.
Tonight was our turn.”
Meanwhile, in a duel of South
Americans, Venezuela finished in
the fifth position of the
tournament following a five-sets
thrilling victory over host
Colombia. The score was 25-20,
18-25, 21-25, 25-20, 16-14.
The Colombians were ahead 14-12
in the tie-breaker, but fell
down victims of their emotions.
“We tried to grab the win before
getting there. We couldn’t
control the emotions and got
over anxious,” said Colombian
Jessica Angulo.
Venezuelan Maria Jose Perez
said: “We lost the rhythm in the
middle sets but luckily found it
again when we it was needed.”
Perez led Venezuela with 15
points, followed by Veronica
Gomez, Desiree Glod and Aleoscar
Blanco with 14, 12 and 11
respectively.
Angulo had 13 and Cindy Ramirez
added 11 for Colombia. |