Volleyball Canada – Report courtesy of USA Volleyball
LINCOLN, Neb. (Jan. 8, 2016) – Dominican Republic captured its second win of the 2016 Women’s NORCECA Olympic Qualification Tournament by defeating Canada 25-27, 25-16, 26-24, 25-21 on Friday night in Lincoln, Neb.
Dominican Republic improves to 2-0 in the four-team round-robin event and will conclude the tournament on Saturday against the host United States at 8 p.m. CT. Canada, now 0-2, concludes the tournament versus Puerto Rico on Saturday at 5 p.m. CT. The winner of the four-team round open tournament qualifies for the 2016 Olympic Games, while the second- and third-place teams in the final standings move into the last chance Olympic Games qualification tournaments in May.
Gina Mambru led Dominican Republic with 21 points, while Prisilla Rivera added 16 points. Candida Arias provided the victors with 13 points and Brayelin Martinez followed with 12 points. Libero Brenda Castillo was credited with 24 digs and 14 excellent receptions on 19 chances.
Canada, which came back from a 24-20 deficit to win the opening set, was paced by Tabitha Love with 13 points. Kyla Richey and Dana Cranston each scored 12 points in the loss. Janie Guimond tallied 17 digs and 26 excellent receptions on 43 chances in her libero position.
Dominican Republic’s serve proved effective as they had a 13-5 ace advantage. The victors held a slim 9-8 margin in blocks to go with a 61-49 edge in kills.
Dominican Republic Head Coach Marcos Kwiek: “There is not any added pressure (in facing USA tomorrow on its home soil). These players have been at this level and have played Japan in Japan and Italy in Italy. They have been all over the world playing in tough matches. They are used to this level and level of play.”
Dominican Republic Captain Prisilla Rivera: “I would much rather lose the first set every single time because we end up winning. If you notice we are always on top at the beginning of the set and we lose it. Yes, we can do better. Yes, we can start faster. But at the end of the day we are winning, and that is what we would rather have. Tomorrow against USA we need a better serve receive and be ready to play.”
Canada Head Coach Arnd Ludwig: “Tomorrow what’s important is that we get a couple sets together. At the end it will probably come down to us against Puerto Rico. We don’t know the results yet, but I assume it’s between us for third place. For me, it was important for us to get a rhythm and we did that well. If we can keep it up what we showed in the first three sets, I think we have a really good chance tomorrow against Puerto Rico.”
Canada Captain Brittney Page: “We have a lot of depth on our team and that allows us a lot of changes. Whenever anyone went in, they made a quick change right away but it was a matter of sustaining that. We didn’t do that when we subbed in, we only did it in little bits at a time but we really needed to maintain to pull out the win.”
NORCECA Olympic Qualification Tournament Details
Jan. 7-9, 2016 Lincoln, Neb. (Pinnacle Bank Arena)
For live streaming see www.usavolleyball.org
Jan. 7
Dominican Republic vs. Puerto Rico, 5 p.m. CT 3-1
USA vs. Canada, 7 p.m. CT 3-0
Jan. 8
Canada vs. Dominican Republic, 5 p.m. CT 1-3
USA vs. Puerto Rico, 7 p.m. CT
Jan. 9
Canada vs. Puerto Rico, 5 p.m. CT
USA vs. Dominican Republic, 8 p.m. CT
Team Canada Roster
Janie Guimond – Bécancour, QC
Lisa Barclay – Brandon, MB
Brittney Page – Vernon, BC
Kyla Richey – Robert’s Creek, BC
Jaimie Thibeault- Sylvan Lake, AB
Tabitha Love- Dauphin, MB
Marisa Field- Kelowna, BC
Jennifer Cross – Scarborough, ON
Lucille Charuk- Tsawwassen, BC
Rebecca Pavan – Kitchener, ON
Shanice Marcelle – Victoria, BC
Jennifer Lundquist – Surrey, BC
Dana Cranston – Fort St. John, BC
Megan Cyr – St Andrews, MB
Staff
Arnd Ludwig – head coach
Ryan Ratushniak – asst coach
Scott Koskie – asst coach
Mandy Los – therapist
Shane Smith- statistician
Nichole Mailey – manager
For more info, see www.usavolleyball.org or use hashtag #VBOlympicQualifier