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.