Visit Omaha NORCECA Women's Continental Championship Day 4 Recap * Sept. 19, 2013 * Ralston Arena
Cuba Downs St. Lucia
Canada Blanks Trinidad & Tobago
Puerto Rico Tops Mexico 3-0
Cuba won its first match of the 2013 Visit Omaha NORCECA Women’s Continental Championship by defeating St. Lucia 25-16, 25-15, 25-6 on Thursday afternoon at Ralston Arena.
Canada advanced to the 2013 Visit Omaha NORCECA Women’s Continental Championship semifinals by defeating Trinidad & Tobago 27-25, 25-11, 25-22 Thursday evening in the quarterfinal round at Ralston Arena.
Puerto Rico earned a spot into Friday’s 2013 Visit Omaha NORCECA Women’s Continental Championship following its 25-16, 25-22, 25-19 quarterfinal victory over Mexico on Thursday evening at Ralston Arena.
Canada will challenge defending champion and host United States on Friday at 8 p.m. CT. Trinidad & Tobago will play Saturday at 4 p.m. CT against Mexico.
Puerto Rico will challenge Dominican Republic, which won Pool A and advanced directly to the semifinals, on Friday at 6 p.m. CT. Mexico will play Trinidad & Tobago in the fifth-place match on Saturday at 4 p.m. CT.
Cuba, which has won the NORCECA Championship a record 13 times but has the youngest team in this year nine-team field, will play Costa Rica on Friday at 4 p.m. CT in the seventh-place match. St. Lucia, playing in its first-ever NORCECA Championship, concludes the tournament in ninth place. Cuba was led by Melissa Vargas, the youngest player in the tournament who is one month shy of her 14th birthday. She scored 17 points and was matched by Alena Rojas’ 17 points. St. Lucia was paced by Dania Hamilton paced St. Lucia with five points. Cuba’s net defense produced a 13-0 block advantage. The Cubans also enjoyed a 14-3 margin in aces and 34-16 edge in kills. “In the first two sets we were not playing the way we were supposed to be playing,” Cuba captain Daymara Lescay said. “The serve-receive was difficult for us and that affected the rest of our game. We just need to improve so we can win those first two sets easily.” “It’s good to see (this level of) volleyball on television,” St. Lucia coach Florian Combie said. “But unless you set your foot in the fire you don’t really get a true sense of what to expect. So now we know what to expect. Hopefully that will translate to us working harder. I must say the people of Nebraska have been very nice and courteous to us.”
Photos courtesy Eric Francis
Canada had 10 players score at least one point led by Tabitha Love’s 11 points. Trinidad & Tobago was paced by Darlene Ramdin’s 13 points and Channon Thompson’s 10 points. Although Trinidad & Tobago held a 33-24 advantage in kills, they committed 39 errors in the three-set match. Canada held a 9-6 margin in blocks and both teams hat five aces. “Trinidad & Tobago is a very athletic team and somewhat unpredictable and it definitely kept us on our toes, but it also got us into trouble,” Canada captain Brittney Page said. “It was really a matter of us keeping on our toes and executing. I think that’s what got us into trouble in that we wanted to win so bad that we were focusing on the last point and not on the process.” “That’s the best match that we have ever played against Canada,” Trinidad & Tobago coach Francisco Cruz said. “We feel that we should have won the first set. We made a lot of easy errors. We gave Canada a lot of easy points that they hardly had to work for.” (“Playing the United States) is going to be a learning experience. We need to play every game that we can get,” Canada coach Arnd Ludwig said. “For us it’s going to be fun tomorrow. We have no pressure whatsoever.”
Aurea Cruz sparked Puerto Rico with 15 points and teammate Karina Ocasio added 12 points. Mexico was paced by Mexico was paced by Andrea Rangel’s eight points. Puerto Rico out-served Mexico 7-3 in aces and held a slim 4-2 margin in blocks. The winners also built a 39-28 advantage in kills. “That was our second goal, to make it to semifinals so we accomplished that today,” Puerto Rico captain Yarimar Rosa said. “We’re glad it was in three sets so we can rest a little bit more for tomorrow’s game. We knew they are a young team and they were going to play up and down and that’s exactly what happened. We have played (the Dominican Republic) a lot this year so we know what to expect from that team. It’s a rivalry between us.” “We didn’t do what we planned to do,” Mexico coach Claudio Torres said. “I think the pressure of wanting to be in the semifinals got to us. We didn’t follow the plan. The players made decisions that they weren’t supposed to and were not what we talked about before the match. If we had focused a little more we could have competed better.”