Elvis Contreras leads Dominican Republic to victory over Mexico

CORDOBA, México, November 26, 2014 - Elvis Contreras topped the Dominican Republic with 22 points, while José Cáceres and German Recio tallied 16 and 10, respectively, in their victory over Mexico 3-1 (18-25, 30-28, 25-17, 25-21) and clinched their second victory.

For Mexico Daniel Vargas finished with 15 points and Samuel Córdova with 10. Mexico opened the first set with a clear rhythm and dominating their Caribbean opponents. However the second set that also registered 58 combined points, was for the Dominican team that had a clear reaction since then.

The host team tried to make a comeback in the fourth, but missed some points in defense, despite getting 41 points by opponent’s errors and giving 31. Despite Mexico finished with more collective aces (5-4) Dominican Republic dominated the blocking game 14-7.

“Congratulations to Dominican Republic. Historically matches between Dominican Republic and Mexico are very tight, they have been a very tough battle for the las three or four years. But today it was very complicated, especially when I saw my players on the court against players like Elvis Contreras. Volleyball is a mental game, and we needed more determination to close the second set,” said Ivan Contreras, coach of Mexico.

“I liked how the fans in Cordoba supported the Mexican team from the first to the last point. We knew it was going to be a very difficult match, because Mexico has won most of the times against us. The first set was very tense. They took the best from our mistakes, but we could recover thanks to Elvis, who guided us to the victory,” said Jose Angel Alvarez Coutino, coach of Dominican Republic.

“I think this was so clear. Dominican Republic made their adjustments and put real pressure with their serve. We could not work with our side out and could not keep the advantage. But we must keep our head up and go on,” said Carlos Guerra, captain of Mexico.

“We stopped working hard in key moments and didn’t close as we must do. We knew it was going to be tough, because they are a very tough opponent,” stated Pedro Rangel of Mexico.

“The Mexican team are always a very difficult opponent. They have defeated us 80 percent of the times we have faced each other. In the first set we experienced some complications in reception. Mexico took the best of that, but in the second one, we tried to improve as we put pressure with our serve to make our players get into the blocking plays easier,” Elvis Contreras, captain of Dominican Republic said.