Boletín No 4 Final Four 2013, Monterrey México

1 COPA FINAL FOUR DE VOLEIBOL MASCULINO 2013 Newsletter No. 3 Mexico and Dominican Republic to play for the Men’s Final Four title MONTERREY, Mexico, November 8, 2013. - Host Mexico and Dominican Republic will play for the I Men’s Final Four Cup Gold medal to take place on Saturday at Nuevo Leon Unido Gym in Monterrey.

In Friday’s first match, Dominican Republic defeated Venezuela and in the closing match, Mexico remained undefeated beating Canada.

Venezuela and Canada will have their rematch on Saturday in the Bronze medal match at 2:00 pm local time and the final match between Mexico and Dominican Republic is programmed at 4:00 pm.

“My team knew how to up with the heat, we were with great attitude. Venezuela found our weaknesses in the second set but we came back strong to finish with the win. I’m glad and hoping to fight for the gold” indicated captain Heredia of Dominican Republic.

Captain Tomas Aguilera took the opportunity to personally thank Canada for making the arrangements to be here and about the match he said “Canada pushed harder in the third and it was a good match; my team is young and improving, it’s important for us to face teams like them who have superiority in the region. Overall the tournament has shown that volleyball is well practiced sport in Mexico; as for tomorrow, being undefeated doesn’t mean we’ll take things overconfident”.

“Our experience definitely made the difference but Venezuelans have lots of potential and talent, they just finished in sixth place a world championship” indicated Osiel Vasquez.

Mexican Coach Jorge Azair expressed “Canada is disciplined in all categories and we have much to learn from them, they were stronger in the third to the extent of being up 2 points so by including Rangel in the lineup, my team gained confidence making less mistakes and being able to close the match”. He also joined Aguilera in thanking Canada for being in the cup.

DOM 3 VEN 1 Dominican Republic dominated Venezuela 3-1 (25-23, 12-25, 25-22, 28-26) on Friday afternoon. A strong battle for both teams where Venezuelans where resilient to lose coming out strong but Dominicans responded stronger to improve their record to 2-1. The fourth set turned out to be the most exciting so far in the tournament. This concluded the preliminary round for both; Venezuela will battle for the Bronze Medal of the event and Dominican Republic awaits the result between Mexico and Canada. Dominicans led 12-10 in the blocking category and in spikes by 53-48; they also made more unforced errors than those of the Venezuelan side 33-23. Venezuela led in aces by 5-2. For the Dominican team, Omar Tapia registered a match high with 22 points, all in spikes, and also closing with double digits were Pedro Luis Garcia and Elnis Palomino with 16 and 10 points respectively. Venezuela was led by Luis Arias with 17 points followed by 14 points by Jonathan Quijada and 11 points by Willner Rivas.