HAVANA, Cuba, October 7, 2022.- Dominican Republic won over Haiti in straight sets (25-23, 25-23, 25-19) to play for the fifth place of the Men’s U21 Pan American Cub on Saturday at Ciudad Deportiva in the country’s capital.
Dominican Republic sealed the serene match in 1 hour and 22 minutes, avoiding that their opponents’ fast actions could put things difficult and concluded with advantages in attacks (43-38) and blocks (12-3), both teams with serves (2-2) and committing more errors (22-18).
Outside hitter Ronny Molina stood out once again, leading all scorers with 22 points, followed by teammate opposite hitter Elixander Gómez who scored 15. For Haiti, their opposite hitter Estakend Beauvoir also stood out with 21 tallies, the only one with double figures.
José Dante Manon, Dominican head coach commented “Haitian boys have a lot of strength and jump a lot, but they are short, so we played high balls from the sides with my players using their height and they attacked over the block, and it worked out. Now we must prepare for tomorrows’ match against the winner between Nicaragua and Chile, for fifth place”.
Setter Fernelis Ramírez said “today we played more focused, we improved everything we think we have going wrong, like our blocking and we tried to press in that skill and reception, and balls that weren’t right we tried to improve them, we were paying more attention the entire match”.
Junior Siecle, head coach of Haiti, was sad for their setback “we know the Dominican team and I think we could have won; we are sad because we almost had the match in our hands, I feel disappointed. We have one match left, against Nicaragua or Chile, who ever we face we will battle strong to not finish last in the tournament”.
Captain Dieulengy Relis said “we feel disappointed because the match was practically in our hand, and winning was the possibility of playing for the fifth place, but we committed too many errors. Nevertheless, tomorrow we will battle for victory, we don’t want to be the last ones”.
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