The tournament is now on it's eighth day of competition. Although all teams were given a day off on the 1st of July you could see that several days of diving for the ball and intense competition was starting to take it's tool on many players. The Puerto Rican squad welcomed July 3rd with two of their top players suffering from the flu, Aurea Cruz -#9 and Tatiana Encarnacion -#4. But as is said in Hollywood "the show must go on".
This game placed the number 1 team from pool B against the number 2 team from pool A. An attendance of 2,851 fans came to see this match-up as a section of very spirited Dominican fans played on drums and several instruments that made most want to get up and dance. As the rumba beat shaked and rattled within the Bank United Center Set 1 was about to start.
Set 1
If you were present for this set you'll probably remember it for several years. Each team matched the other intensity. Their were 12 ties through-out the set with several monster kills and several incredible volleys. The lead went back and forth from 21-21 to 25-25. Then several match point scame into play for both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Depending on which team you favored your hopes rose on match point only to fall with the next tie. Finally Puerto Rico outlasted the Dominican Republic 36-34.
Set 2The Dominican team raced to an early lead only to allow Puerto Rico to tie the game at 11. In this set Bethania De La Cruz -#18 delivered a slam that knocked down a Puerto Rican player. Although the set was extremely close Puerto Rico came out victorious 25-22. The Dominican fans sat silent.
Set 3The Dominican again raced to an early lead only to be tied by the Puerto Rican team. This set was very similar to the second where Puerto Rico went ahead from a 22all tie. Again the set is tied now at 23 yet it was the Dominican Republic that was victorious 25-23 as the Dominican beat roared! As I sensed a major momentum change I looked over to my friend Al and told him "this is big - Puerto Rico left the door open".
"We lost a big opportunity to win the match," said Carlos Cardona, the coach of Puerto Rico. "We knew that in order to win it was necessary to make lesser errors than them and that was not the case at the end of the match."
Set 4 The Dominican rumba beat was on again as the team raced to a 15-8 advantage that didn't seem that close. You could see the Puerto Rican team losing gas as you could see the Dominican team building and building. Finally the Puerto Rican teams rally was to little to late as the Dominican team took the forth set 25-21.
Set 5The previous four sets took 2 hours and 12 minutes to play. Both team where clearly tired - this is when all the conditioning takes control of the body and allows a player to go forward and continue to play hard. As the set progressed it was clear that Puerto Rico ran out of gas as the Dominican team raced to a 15-9 victory that really wasn't that close.
----------------------------------------------
In the end the Dominican Republic made a sensational comeback to beat Puerto Rico in a five-set thriller advancing to the gold medal match of the Eighth Women's Pan American Cup. The defending champions recovered from two sets down and a four-point deficit (18-14) in the third frame to secure their fifth appearance in the finals of this qualifier to the FIVB World Grand Prix. The score was 34-36, 22-25, 25-23, 25-21, 15-9.
Dominican Republic: Bethania de la Cruz-#18 and Prisilla Rivera-#14 paced the Dominican attack with 25 and 19 points respectively. Lisvel Eve-#3 contributed 12, Milagros Cabral-#10 added 11 and Annerys Vargas-#1 chipped in eight points.
Puerto Rican: Aurea Cruz-#9, the leading scorer of the competition, recorded 20 points and Karina Ocasio-#11 added 20. Sarai Alvarez-#5 and Sheila Ocasio-#17 scored 17 and 12 respectively.
The Dominican blocking was superior to that of its opponent (13-7) and Puerto Rico had an advantage in the serves category with 11 aces against 9 by the winners.
"We started playing very well but then our game slowed down with many errors," said Dominican Republic Marcos Kwiek. "But the most important thing is that we recovered in time to make the come back."
The Dominican team has now been involved in two of the most memorable and exciting matches of these games. First it's match vs. Brazil to capture Pool B and now this match vs. Puerto Rico.
Special thanks toRobert Kauffman of U.S. Volleyball for the quotes utilized on this Game Spotlight.
No comments:
Post a Comment