Cuba edges Dominican Republic, to face Canada in semis

LANGLEY, Canada, September 26, 2013.- Cuba qualified to the semifinals in five sets victory (25-21, 21-25, 23-25, 25-16, 15-12) over Dominican Republic. Both teams played the longest match of the tournament and had a total combined points of 208.

Jose Caceres finished as top scorer with 31 points for the Dominican team while Elvis Contreras registered 17and captain Wilfrido Hernandez 13. For Cuba, Rolando Cepeda tallied 22 and was followed by Lazaro Fundora with 17 and Javier Ernesto Jiménez with 13. Cuba will play against Canada on the semifinals.

“Congratulations to Cuba. I also want to congratulate ourselves because this was a great match. We did our best and they pushed us with their serve and their opposite worked very well”, said Dominican captain Jose Caceres.

“Dominican Republic players did their best. It was so complicated for us. We did our best but We could go on and played more physical at the end. They were tired and we tried to get the best of that situation to win,” said Alexis Lamadrid, captain of Cuba.

“We knew it was going to be so dificult. We wanted the victory but we couldn’t, Cuba is a team with young players but with good height and also had a good serve. We decreased our intensity and the fifth set was so close, however I am glad for all that our players did,” stated Dominican Republic’s coach Osiel Vázquez.

For Rodolfo Sánchez, Cuba played well despite the pressure. “They played with some kind of pressure, but after fourth set things run better. Everybody knew what to do and the boys did a great job despite We couldn’t worked well with some balls. It was important to win but there is still a lot of work to do,” He remarked.