Puerto Rico and Cuba will play for the men’s crown in Cartagena

CARTAGENA, Colombia, July 28, 2006.- Puerto Rico and Cuba will play for the men’s crown in the volleyball tournament of the XX Central American Games after scoring straight sets victories in the semi final phase over Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

The Puerto Ricans dominated their Dominicans opponents by score of 25-22, 25-17, 25-20 and the Cubans beat Venezuela 25-23, 25-23, 25-15.

“We came out with the purpose of neutralizing their two strong guys, Contreras and Caceres, and we did it,” said Puerto Rican Luis Rodriguez. “Our serves were also excellent and we established our game.”

Hector Soto and Victor Rivera had 15 and 10 points for Puerto Rico and Rene Estevez and Rodriguez each had 8. Elvis Contreras and Jose Caceres had 14 and 11 respectively for the Dominican Republic.

“We didn’t do anything,” said Julio Frias, the Dominican coach. “The serves, the receiving and the blocking were bad, and you can’t win playing like that. I hope we can improve against Venezuela.”

Osmany Juantorena and Odelvis Dominico each scored 12 points for Cuba and Raidel Poey added 9. Carlos Tejeda had 9 for Venezuela and Luis Díaz 7.

“We started pressing ourselves a little bit, without confidence, but we caught the rhythm with the development of the match and finished very high,” said Pavel Pimienta, the Cuban captain.

“We scouted Venezuela, a team we had not faced since 2003 and stopped their tall players,” said Roberto Garcia, the Cuban coach. “A good serve guarantee you good blocking and that is what we did, nothing else.”

In the match for fifth place, Mexico defeated Colombia 26-24, 25-22, 25-19 with Ivan Contreras recording 20 points and Gustavo Meyer adding 12. Colombians Alexander Moreno and Johan Estrada had 15 and 10 respectively.