Havana, September 23 (ACN) - The Cuban national team defeated the Dominican Republic 3-0 in the fourth day of the III Norceca 2023 Pan American Cup Final Six, held at the Flair Airlines Hangar, in the Edmonton Expo Centre. 

According to the website www.norceca.net, the young Cubans, most of them in the U-21 category, swept the Dominicans in just over an hour of action on the court, with an individual highlight for assistant José Ramón Gómez.

Gómez, top scorer of the match with 18 points, 15 in attack, one in blocking and two in service, was a key player in the success, the second of the Major of the Antilles in the tournament.

Also outstanding for the Cuban team were opposite Alejandro Miguel Gonzalez (12/9-1-2) and assistant Yusniel Marti (11/11-0-0), while for the Dominicans Gerson Ezequiel Toribio (12/10-1-1) and Ronny Albert Molina (12/11-1-0) stood out.

The collective statistics reflect the better performance of Espinosa's pupils, with positive balances in attack (43-32), blocking (8-5) and service (7-2). However, they gave up 11 more points due to errors (28-17) than their rivals.

Earlier, Cuba defeated Puerto Rico 3-1 (25-22, 19-25, 26-24 and 25-18) and lost to Mexico (26-24, 25-22, 18-25, 17-25 and 8-15) and Canada (22-25, 20-25, 25-23, 16-25).

Saturday's matches, the last day of preliminaries in the round-robin system, will be between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, Americans and Cubans, and Canadians and Mexicans.

The top two teams will battle for the gold medal on Sunday, the third and fourth will fight for the bronze medal, and the fifth and sixth for fifth place.