BASEBALL

Half the of the 32 players that form the Camagüey baseball team for the 55th National Series announced today for August 29th , come from the team that represented the province in the sub-23 Cuban Championship that finished recently, where the squad finished in 9th place.

With an age average of 24 years old, the baseball players picked from a preselection of 60 players are Ermindo Escobar, Pedro Smith, Luis Gomez and Arlen González to work as catchers.

Asnier Hernandez, Leonel Segura, Humberto Bravo, Yosbel Pérez,Libán Amaro, Rafael Lastre, Addel Tores and Eleazar Lami will play as infielders. In the outfield will be Héctor Hernández Ramírez, Dairon Blanco, Luis Antonio González, Dariel Áviles, Zamora, Leonel Moa Jr. And Yanmichel Flores.

Displaying a very young team, the pitching section is formed by the experienced Vicyohandri Odelín and Yormani Socarrás, and is completed by Frank Madan, Dariel Góngora, José Ramón Rodríguez, Rolando Rodríguez, Lizander Hernández, Carlos Pérez, David Brito, Rodolfo Soris, Ramón Robles, Erislery Basulto Juan Díaz and Yariel Rodríguez.

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To overcome the third place from the last edition of the National Baseball Series is the main challenge for the Matanzas team in the 55th edition of the series.

The team's coach, Victor Mesa, said that he expects the best from his players and that no one should be intimidated because of the team's defeats in the final stages of the competition in recent years. This is a new war that is starting and every battle will be decisive to get to the final goal.

Matanzas' Crocodiles will debut with its counterpart from Cienfuegos on the August 30th in the Southern Pearl's “5 de Septiembre” Stadium.

BOXING

The classification to the semifinals of the Continental Championship of the World Boxing Association will wrap up today in the state of Vargas, in Venezuela.

On Wednesday night, Yosbany Veitía and Roniel Iglesias closed the evening with three victories on the first date of the pre-world boxing tournament. The undefeated status of the island was kept by fly weight Veitía and the welter Iglesias in the José María Vargas arena.

The lightweight Lazaro Alvarez suffered before the Domican Leonel de los Santos who relied on his height for the match. But not being enough, Alvarez won 2-1 (28-29, 29-28, 29-28).

Olympic champion, Roniel, relied on his superiority before his Guatemalan counterpart, Lester Martinez, crowning the match in 3-0 (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) in favor of Roniel. Next, he'll be facing Marvin Cabrera from Mexico.

Volleyball

The Cuban male volleyball team lost three sets before the host, Argentina, in the round before the quarter finals of the sub-19 World Championship being held in the Argentinian cities of Resistencia and Corrientes.

According to the official website, the Cuban team fell before the locals with partials of 24-36, 20-25 and 19-25. This result kept the team from moving forward despite the outstanding performance of Miguel Angel Lopez who gathered 23 points.

After the defeat, the Cuban coach said that the team wasn't able to play as they set out to do and therefore lost the match. Adrian, Goide, the captain of the team, declared that they gave everything they had on the court but still didn't manage to do as they had planned.

Cuba will now fight for a spot between the 9th and the 16th places.