The Dominican Republic celebrate qualification to the 2018 FIVB World Championship - capped with a win over Puerto Rico to top their NORCECA qualification tournament.
Lausanne, Switzerland, October 16, 2017 - The Dominican Republic and Mexico topped the two groups of the North & Central America and Caribbean qualifiers for the 2018 FIVB Women's World Championship, where they are joined by Puerto Rico and Trinidad & Tobago as the four tickets up for grabs had been already decided with a day to spare in the two round-robin tournaments.
The Dominican Republic shut out Puerto Rico 3-0 (26-24, 25-21, 25-15) before a sellout partisan crowd in Santo Domingo, with Annerys Vargas scoring 13 points and Brayelin Martinez adding another 12. The hosts conceded five aces without scoring any, but outblocked Puerto Rico 12 stuffs to 9.
In the other match of the day in Santo Domingo, Rut Gomez led Guatemala with 17 points in their 3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-20) sweep of Jamaica.
Trinidad & Tobago made a brave attempt at a comeback at home in Port of Spain, forcing a tie-break after finding themselves two sets down, but Mexico came away with the bragging rights win 3-2 (25-21, 25-22, 23-25, 22-25, 15-9). Trinidad & Tobago's Channon Thompson was top scorer of the game with 24 points, but Samantha Bricio countered that with 23 for Mexico.
Earlier on the closing day in Port of Spain, Mijal Hines scored 12 points and Paola Ramirez 10 to carry Costa Rica to a 3-0 (25-14, 25-13, 25-13) win over Dominica.
Costa Rica mimic Usain Bolt to celebrate their only victory at the NORCECA qualifiers for the 2018 FIVB World Championship.Canada and Cuba had already punched their tickets for Japan 2018 when they finished 1-2 in Pool C of the NORCECA qualifiers last month in Vancouver.
Together with Argentina qualifying from South America in Arequipa, this weekend saw the full roster completed for the 2018 FIVB Women's World Championship.
Previously qualified were Japan as hosts and USA as defending champions. Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Italy, Azerbaijan, Germany, the Netherlands and Bulgaria all qualified from Europe, Brazil advanced from South America, while China, Kazakhstan, Korea and Thailand made it through the Asian qualifiers, in addition to Cuba and Canada from NORCECA. Meanwhile, Kenya and Cameroon secured the African tickets on Friday evening in Yaounde.
For more information on the two NORCECA tournaments, including photos and statistics, check out the dedicated sections on the Confederation's website:
- Santo Domingo tournament
- Port of Spain tournamentQuick links - Volleyball:
FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship 2018FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship 2018FIVB.com - VolleyballFIVB.com
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