GUADALAJARA, MEXICO. The reigning champions of last year, the Queens of the Caribbean, started well in the defense of the title this Monday by convincingly defeating Cuba 3-0 (25-16, 25-23 and 25-20), at the beginning of the NORCECA Women’s Final Six 2025, which was inaugurated this Monday.
You may be interested in:Queens of the Caribbean fine-tune their preparation in Thailand towards the Volleyball World Cup
The Dominican Republic team, which has been completely renewed, will face Puerto Rico this Tuesday at eight o’clock at night (Dominican time), where they will try to maintain their undefeated record in the competition.
The winners’ attack was led by Alondra Tapia and Madeline Guillén, who scored 19 and 15 points, respectively, while Flor Terrero and Samaret Caraballo contributed eight points each.
For Cuba, the best was Dezirett Mudan who managed to score nine points.
The statistics showed that the Criollas had 38-26 in attack, in blocks 12-6 in favor of the Criollas and in serves, Cuba dominated 9-3.
In the first set, the Dominican team, with good attacks from Alondra Tapia and excellent blocks, stopped Cuba’s offense in its tracks, who couldn’t find a way to stop their opponents.
The game at one point went 16-10 and attacks by Alondra Tapia, Samaret Caraballo and the middle blockers, Geraldine González and Flor Terrero, brought the games to 20-12.
The second and third sets were somewhat contentious, however, the winners with good spikes from Madeline Guillén, from the center, Flor Torrero and Alondra Tapia, managed to stop the Cubans. The Dominican team has the support of the Ministry of Sports and Farmacias GBC.
This is the fifth edition of this prestigious tournament, which is part of the qualifying process for the NORCECA Women’s Pan American Cup 2026 and the NORCECA Women’s Continental Championship 2026.
Dominican Republic is in Guadalajara as the defending champion, after winning the title three times (2021, 2022, 2024). The United States was the winner in 2023.
The competition format includes a preliminary phase that began this Monday with a round-robin format, in which the four best teams advance to the cross-semifinals (2nd vs. 3rd and 1st vs. 4th) on September 20th.
The teams that finish in fifth and sixth place will face each other in the final day to define their position, followed by the matches for the bronze and gold medals.
The six participating teams are the host country Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the United States.
