Dominican Republic start with a five-set victory over USA 

BYDGOSZCZ, Poland, August 16, 2006.- The 2006 FIVB World Grand Prix could not have a better start than a five-set battle won by the Dominican Republic over USA by score of 21-25, 25-23, 19-25, 27-25, 15-8 behind the attack of veteran Nurys Arias.

It was the second win for the Dominican Republic the last two contests against USA with the previous one (3-0) at the Pan American Cup in June.

Fittingly, Arias scored five of her match 26 points in the tie-breaker, including the spike for the victory. She also recorded 3 blocks and 3 service winners.

“I gave my best and all my teammates did the job,” said Arias. “It is very important to start the Grand Prix with a victory and our goal is to make the finals. We are confident that our team can play with anybody.”

“The location of the serves was the key in the fifth set,” said Miguel Beato Cruz, the Dominican coach. “We served to specific points and everything worked very well against a team with great depth as USA.”

Annerys Vargas, Cosiris Rodriguez and Prisilla Rivera also scored in double figures for the winners with 18, 13 and 10 points respectively.

Tayyiba Haneef and Nancy Metcalf led the Americans with 25 and 20 points and Therese Crawford and Jennifer Joines contributed 14 and 10 respectively.

The Dominicans were ahead in the first set at the two technical time-outs (8-5 and 16-15) and maintained a narrow at 20-19 advantage when Metcalf combined spike and blocking followed by a bomb by Crawford to give USA a lead that never relinquished.

In the second set, the Dominicans erased one 14-8 deficit behind the spikes of Arias to tie-up at 16-all. With the score even 23-23, Vargas spiked and blocked for the win.

The Americans jumped in the third set to an 8-1 rally led by Haneef and dominated the rest of the way despite a Dominican reaction behind Vargas that narrowed the gap 12-9. The offense of Metcalf again restored the comfortable margin for USA.

USA relied on the spikes of the tall Haneef for a 16-13 lead in the fourth set but only to see the Dominicans to even things at 16-all with consecutive spikes of Rodriguez and Vargas followed by one unforced mistake. The tough battle continued and at 25-all once again Rodriguez and Vargas parlayed spike and block for the win.