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LINCOLN, Nebraska, January 8, 2016 – Dominican Republic captured
its second win of the 2016 Women’s NORCECA Olympic Qualification
Tournament by defeating Canada 25-27, 25-16, 26-24, 25-21 on
Friday night in Lincoln, Neb.
Dominican Republic improves to 2-0 in the four-team round-robin
event and will conclude the tournament on Saturday against the
host United States at 8 p.m. CT. Canada, now 0-2, concludes the
tournament versus Puerto Rico on Saturday at 5 p.m. CT. The
winner of the four-team round open tournament qualifies for the
2016 Olympic Games, while the second- and third-place teams in
the final standings move into the last chance Olympic Games
qualification tournaments in May.
Gina Mambru led Dominican Republic with 21 points, while
Prisilla Rivera added 16 points. Candida Arias provided the
victors with 13 points and Brayelin Martinez followed with 12
points. Libero Brenda Castillo was credited with 24 digs and 14
excellent receptions on 19 chances.
Canada, which came back from a 24-20 deficit to win the opening
set, was paced by Tabitha Love with 13 points. Kyla Richey and
Dana Cranston each scored 12 points in the loss. Janie Guilmond
tallied 17 digs and 26 excellent receptions on 43 chances in her
libero position.
Dominican Republic’s serve proved effective as they had a 13-5
ace advantage. The victors held a slim 9-8 margin in blocks to
go with a 61-49 edge in kills.
Dominican Republic Head Coach Marcos Kwiek:
“There is not any added pressure (in facing USA tomorrow on its
home soil). These players have been at this level and have
played Japan in Japan and Italy in Italy. They have been all
over the world playing in tough matches. They are used to this
level and level of play.”
Dominican Republic Captain Prisilla Rivera:
“I would much rather lose the first set every single time
because we end up winning. If you notice we are always on top at
the beginning of the set and we lose it. Yes, we can do better.
Yes, we can start faster. But at the end of the day we are
winning, and that is what we would rather have. Tomorrow against
USA we need a better serve receive and be ready to play.”
Canada Head Coach Arnd Ludwig:
“Tomorrow what’s important is that we get a couple sets
together. At the end it will probably come down to us against
Puerto Rico. We don’t know the results yet, but I assume it’s
between us for third place. For me, it was important for us to
get a rhythm and we did that well. If we can keep it up what we
showed in the first three sets, I think we have a really good
chance tomorrow against Puerto Rico.”
Canada Captain Brittney Page:
“We have a lot of depth on our team and that allows us a lot of
changes. Whenever anyone went in, they made a quick change right
away but it was a matter of sustaining that. We didn’t do that
when we subbed in, we only did it in little bits at a time but
we really needed to maintain to pull out the win.” |
