Cuba clinch a berth into the semifinals after beating Costa Rica

CORDOBA, México, November 18, 2014.- Cuba clinched a berth into the semifinals at the volleyball tournament of the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games after beating Costa Rica in straight sets (25-17, 25-12, 25-17) at the Cordoba Arena.

The Cubans had their best weapons in Melissa Vargas who tallied 23 points, while Verania Willis finished with 8 for the Costa Rican team that will play for fifth place in next round.

Meanwhile, Cuba will match Puerto Rico and will try to explode all their weapons as they did against Costa Rica in the quartefinals. Serving was the best strategy for the Caribbean team that closed with a 10-2 aces difference in their favor, four of them by Vargas and a blocking advantage of 6-3. Cuba surrendered 19 points by mistakes, while Costa Rica gave 20.

“Definitely, this was a very easy match for Cuba, because of the mistakes we made. Congratulations to Cuba. We will try to correct those mistakes on the next round when we play for the fifth place”, said Angela Willis, captain of Costa Rica.

“This was a very easy match, but we played tough and for our next match we will also play tough against Puerto Rico,” Sulian de la Caridad Matienzo, captain of Cuba said.

“Serving was key to us. Our tactical plan really worked, we tried to serve to the extremes. It was very effective and we could win the match,” Juan Carlos Gala, coach of Cuba said.

“I want to congratulate Juan Carlos for this victory for qualifying to the semifinals. We could not play very well. We knew that this would be decided with the team that served better and that was their best weapon,” Horacio Bastit, coach of Costa Rica, remarked.

“We had a very low performance with our two best players. However, the ballance at the competition has not been negative, as we consider that we have two victories and two losses. Now we have to move on and play for positions 5 to 8.”