Dominican Republic one step away from a fourth gold medal

The Dominican Republic earned the right to defend their title of U23 Pan American Cup champion, after overcoming Cuba 3-1 (22-25, 25-16, 25-13, 25-21) in the first semi-final match at the Manuel Bonilla Coliseum in Miraflores.

Brayelin Martinez was in charge of guiding her team to victory by scoring 24 points, followed by Gaila Gonzalez and Jineiry Martinez with 13 points each and Natalia Martinez who finished with 10 points. For Cuba, Diaris Pérez and Ailama Cese led with 17 and 13 points respectively.

Dominicana had the advantage in attacks (54-45), blocking (12-8) and service (3-2). The winning team committed 20 unforced errors and the loser had 28.

The Dominican Republic setter, Yokaty Pérez: "In the first set we gave in to the pressure of playing a semifinal, Cuba is a difficult opponent but from the second set we were leaving behind the pressure and taking our pace of play. Tomorrow we will deliver everything on the field to keep the gold."

The captain of Cuba, Gretell Moreno: "We are a young group and we still need to engage a little more as a team. This defeat leaves us as a lesson that we must work more in the definition of our attack and in the speed of our defense, they played many short balls and we did not know how to react. Although we will not fight for gold, the team has grown a lot; we are girls of different categories who started working together from this year on and as we advance in the competitions we will be more cohesive".