Dominicans won in five sets, Cubans and Puerto Ricans are also unbeaten in Colombia 

CARTAGENA, Colombia, July 25, 2006.- Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico are undefeated after two days of pool play in the men’s volleyball event at the Central American and Caribbean Games.

While the Dominicans had to battle for five-sets to keep their unbeaten record, Cubans and Puerto Ricans had easy matches in their pool matches.

Dominican Republic is 2-0 in Pool A following its five-set triumph over Mexico with the combined titanic effort of Elvis Contreras and Jose Caceres who each scored 25 points.

“Our game at the net has been good but we have had some problems with our reception that we need to improve,” said Dominican coach Julio Frias after the win by score of 25-21, 21-25, 25-21, 22-25, 15-13.

“We knew about the resources of our opponent so we just came prepared to play with a big level of concentration,” he added.

Mexican Ivan Contreras led all the scorers with 29 points, Gustavo Meyer had 12 and Jose Martell and Juan Garcia chipped in 11 and 10 respectively.

Also in Pool A, the powerful team of Cuba crushed Trinidad & Tobago 3-0 (25-9, 25-11 y 25-14). Tomas Aldazabal with 10 points was the best Cuban scorer. Oriol Camejo had eight and Michael Sanchez and Roberlandy Simon each had 7. Nolan Tash led Trinidad & Tobago with 8 points.

Despite the victory, Cuban captain Pavel Pimienta said that “we need to improve in every aspect of our game and we hope that will come out starting tomorrow in our match against Dominican Republic.”

“In the second phase, when the level increases, our team will be playing the kind of volleyball we want to,” he added.

Puerto Rico defeated Barbados 3-0 and improved its record to 2-0 in Pool B. The score was 25-15, 27-25, 25-18.

The Puerto Ricans moved constantly their bench and faced a tough resistance from the Bajans in the second set.

“Today we were a little bit below, maybe because of the hard match we had last night against Venezuela,” said setter Angel Perez. “We need to improve our serves.”

Once again Hector Soto was the top Puerto Rican attacker with 15 points, and René Esteves and Victor Rivera added 8 and 7 respectively. Elwyn Oxley was the best of Barbados with 9 points.

In the last match of the night, Venezuela beat Colombia 3-1 and now both teams are tied with 1-1 record in Pool B. The score was 25-22, 20-25, 25-13, 25-23.

Tomas Ereu was the offensive leader of Venezuela with 17 points, followed by Carlos Tejeda with 14, Luis Diaz with 11 and Ivan Marquez and Freddy Cedeno each with 10. Colombian Liberman Agamez had 22 points and Jaime Viafara added 11.