Turkey sweeps Cuba at int'l women's volleyball tournament

LUOHE, Henan Province, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkey beat Cuba in straight sets here on Sunday for its first victory at the 2010 China International Women's Volleyball Tournament.

Ozsoy Neriman scored 12 points and Toksoy Bahar added 10 to lead the Turkish women, 3-2 losers to China on Saturday, to the 25-19, 25-22 and 26-24 win in 78 minutes.

Turkey started strongly in the first match of the day, jumping to an 8-2 lead at the first technical time-out thanks to a couple of Cuban mistakes and a pair of aces of Toksoy Bahar.

The inexperienced Cuban girls, who have an average age of 20.4 years old, struggled with poor receiving. Opon Kenia Carcaces pulled them within 17-14 with a smash and a smart dink, only to find Turkey surge away on a 3-0 run capped by consecutive aces of Erdem Eda and hold on to take the opener.

Trailing 8-3 and 16-10 in the first and second technical time-outs of the second set, Cuba used a 5-1 run to cut it to 17-15. Later on, a smash of backup spiker Abel Ana Yilian Cleger and a team block against Darnel Neslihan made it one point game, but Ozsoy Neriman came up with a fine shot to give Turkey the set point before Toksoy Bahar converted on it with an ace.

In the third set, Turkey was leading 22-16 before Cuba staged an 8-2 run to level it at 24-all. However, a serving mistake of Simon Liannes Castaneda and a spiking error from Abel Ana Yilian Cleger awarded the match to Turkey.

Turkey finished with 13 aces, compared with only one for Cuba.

"I am very satisfied with our serving, we made some trouble for their receiving system," said Turkey's Italian head coach Alessandro Chiappini. "And I am happy that we fight in difficult moments."

"But we have to improve our blocking and I hope we can play better in the next game," he added.

Cuba, who gave away a total of 26 points on errors in its second loss in two days, was led by Carcaces's 13 points.

Later on Sunday, China will play Dominican Republic in the Luohe Sports Center.

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