The Dominican Republic and the United States national women’s volleyball teams have secured spots in the semifinals of the XIII Women’s Volleyball Pan American Cup. The Dominican women made the semi-finals following a straight set (25-22, 25-14, 25-22) victory over Canada when playing in Mexico City on Sunday, 15 June 2014. The Dominican women reached the semi-finals with a 5-0 win-loss record while the Canadians fell to a 3-2 mark.
The winners held a 10-4 difference in the blocking category and a slight margin in aces 6-5. They also had 36 kills to 31 by the losers.
Norceca reported that Bethania de la Cruz paced the balanced Dominican Republic offense with 15 points, followed by Yonkaira Pena who finished with 12. Brittney Page and Marisa Field had 12 and 8 points, respectively, for Canada.
“It was our best game of the preliminary round,” said Dominican Republic’s Coach Marcos Kwiek. “We served well and organized our blocking and the defense. We have achieved our first goal that was winning the pool.”
“It was not our best game as we didn’t serve well and couldn’t use our best element which is the blocking,” said Canada’s coach Arn Ludwig. “If you don’t have a good blocking against a team like Dominican Republic you don’t have a chance.”
“We didn’t have good services and were not able to recover until the third set,” Page said. “We played good in the third set but it was not enough.”
The team’s second most difficult challenge in the first round was against Peru, when the Dominican team won in five sets (25-18, 25-21, 22-25, 18-25, 15-12) in Pool A of the XIII Women’s Volleyball Pan American Cup on Saturday, 14 June.
www.norceca.net/Dominicans%20advance%20undefeated%20to%20semifinals.htm
http://boxscorenews.com/dominican-women-win-volleyball-pool-a-of-pan-am-cup-p92056-68.htm