Dominican Republic's Yokaty Perez Flores and Jineiry Martinez celebrate their hard-earned comeback against Argentina
Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 12, 2017 – After a sluggish start, the Dominican Republic bounced back courageously to book a hard-earned 4-3 (21-23, 12-15, 15-12, 17-15, 16-14, 20-22, 15-5) win over Argentina in Pool A on Tuesday afternoon. Thus, the Dominicans have improved their records to 2-1 wins while Argentina are still waiting for their first victory here at the 2017 FIVB Women’s U23 World Championship in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was the first seven-set match so far in the competition, lasting 2 hours and 3 minutes.
All matches in Ljubljana are played under a
new scoring system currently being tested: a best-of-seven, 15-point set format.
Dominican Republic’s Madeline Jazmin Guillen and Argentina’s Sol Piccolo booked 22 points apiece for their squads while Daniela Bulaich added another 20 kills for the South Americans.
The Dominicans started nervous, lacking determination and freshness in the early stages of the match. On the other side, Argentina displayed a strong offense with 16 successful attacks and 4 block winners in the opening set. It turned out to be the longest (24 minutes) and highest scoring set (23-21) so far in the tournament.
The "Queens of the Caribbean" celebrate their epic seven-set win versus ArgentinaThe South Americans kept the upper hand in the second set (15-12) but could not stop the Dominican power in the third period (15-12). Jineiry Martinez ended it with a scorching spike through the middle.