Cuba Women’s VB Team Makes Cut

By Circles Robinson

HAVANA TIMES, Nov. 3 — Cuba’s popular “Morenas del Caribe” women’s volleyball team lost to the United States on Wednesday but on points made it into the second round of the World Championships being played in Japan.

The Cubans finished in a three-way tie in Pool C along with Thailand and Croatia, all with a 2-3 record. However the four teams passing on to the next round are the USA (5-0), Germany (4-1) Cuba and Thailand.

The match with the USA was very hard fought and lasted over two hours with the Cubans falling 28-30, 23-25, 25-22, 23-25.

Kenia Carcaces led Cuba and all scorers with 23 points and Yoana Palacios contributed 17 for the losers.  The USA was led by Destinee Hooker who had 20 points with Logan Tom adding 19.

The official Volleyball Federation website noted the improvement shown by the Cubans as the tournament advances.

Cuba opened the tournament with two embarrassing straight set losses to Croatia and Germany but rebounded to defeat Kazakhstan and Thailand before the difficult loss to the USA.

The second round of play is scheduled to begin on Saturday, November 6th.