Dominican Republic and USA qualified to the U-18 World Championships

GAINESVILLE, Florida, July 28, 2006.- Dominican Republic and USA qualified for the 2007 FIVB Girls’ Youth World Championship (U-18) while securing spots in the gold medal match of the NORCECA Continental Tournament.

The Dominicans were pushed to five sets by Mexico, but eventually prevailed 22-25, 25-19, 25-21, 30-32, 15-11, while the Americans defeated Canada 25-18, 25-18, 21-25, 25-18.

USA and Dominican Republic are undefeated in four outings and conclude the preliminary round-robin portion of the competition facing each other on Saturday and again on Sunday in the match for the crown.

Mexico, 1-3 in the tournament, is the second team to send the undefeated Dominican Republic team to a fifth set in the tournament. Puerto Rico won the first two sets of its tournament-opening match last Tuesday, only to see the Dominicans rally to win in five sets.

Joeselyna Rodriguez led Dominican Republic with 24 points, Kahoriz Feliz turned in 13, Mayern Nunez added 12, and setter Elaine Santos contributed 9 points. Mexico was paced by Valery Garza’s 21 points, Karla Alonso connected for 13, while Xitlali Corrujedo and Lorena Sanchez tacked 12 and 11 points respectively.

It is the third time the Dominicans qualify to the World Championship with the previous two in 1997 in Thailand and 2001 in Croatia.

“It is a great triumph for the Dominican volleyball,” said Cristobal Marte, president of the female program of the Dominican Republic Federation. “I want to congratulate all the girls for their magnificent effort and also to members of the technical staff, Enrique Larrazaleta, Juan Capellan, Mayo Sibilia and Ruben Andisin.”

Tarah Murrey and Kanani Herring led Team USA with 14 points apiece while Falyn Fonoimoana, playing for the first time in the tournament, contributed 10 points off the bench. Becky Pavan paced Canada with 12 points

“Last night, we played a high intensity, nearly perfect match against Puerto Rico,” U.S. Head Coach Shelton Collier said. “We played with amazing efficiency for the entire match. Tonight, Murrey was not at 100 percent so we did not play her all of the time and we lost Bateman to a pretty severe ankle injury midway in the match. We were working to find some player combinations to get the win, and I am happy we were able to do so.”

“We needed to use several different lineups, and it took us a while to get it together and play our style of volleyball,” Team USA libero Sydney Yogi said. “I was proud that we worked through our adversity and found a way to win.”

In the first match of the day, Puerto Rico claimed its first victory in the competition with a 25-9, 25-8, 25-14 victory over Honduras. The Puerto Ricans improved to 1-3 and Honduras is 0-4 in the six-team tournament.

Shirley Ferrer sparked Puerto Rico with 14 points and Joely Narvaez added 10 points. Karla Ponce provided Honduras with a team-high 10 points.