“Our goal this summer is to stay in the VNL, so every win we get is an opportunity for us to secure our spot in the VNL. So, we are just so relieved today that we got to pull the win, because the Dominican Republic are one of our direct opponents in fighting for that spot,” Pauline Martin told VBTV. “We just went for it. We were leading 2-0, and I am so grateful that in the tie-breaker, we came back to our level from the first two sets and everyone did so great to fight back and pull that win.”
The Caribbean Queens made fewer unforced errors that their European opponents, 23-30, and outdid Belgium in net defense by 11-7 in kill blocks. They even had a three-point lead in the tie-breaker getting to within six points of a reverse sweep, before the Belgians reacted with six in a row to regain control. Four of their players reached the double digits in scoring, with outside Yonkaira Pena leading the way with 19 points. Her cross-court teammate and captain Brayelin Martinez and middle blocker Jineiry Martinez added 14 and 11 points, respectively, while opposite Gaila Gonzalez put away 17 points, exactly what she needed to celebrate 1,000 VNL points.
“First, congrats to them! They had a really good game. We tried to fight all the way through the end,” said Gaila. “We try to fix things in our team to play better day by day. We have more trust in ourselves. We try to do what we know how to do and that’s to play really good volleyball. The next games are really important as we try to stay in the VNL, so we’ll try to do our best – every day, every time…”
