Towering defense powers Cuba over Netherlands

Dragged into a five-setter by a tough Netherlands side, fancied Cuba went to its vaunted net defense when its offense began to sputter as it escaped with a 25-20, 19-25, 22-25, 25-22, 15-13 victory yesterday in the 2005 FIVB World Grand Prix at the Philsports Arena.

"We didn’t play the way we used to," said Cuba coach Felipe Calderon, who steered the team to a bronze medal finish in the 2004 Athens Olympics, through an interpreter. "But we were playing better defense in the last two sets, that’s the reason we won."

Truly, it was defense that kept the Cubans’ heads above water as the 1996 Atlanta Games gold medalists, behind Nancy Carillo and Zoila Barros, stymied the Dutch spikers’ attack upfront and went on to notch their second straight win.

The 19-year-old Carillo, a marked player after unleashing 21 points against perennial Southeast Asian Games champion Thailand Friday, firmed up the team’s stance on the net with her long, strong arms and superb timing as she scored six points off the 28 blocks she attempted. She finished with 12 hits.

Barros, also a veteran internationalist who plays for a club team Ciudad Havana back home, added four blocks to finish with 14 points.

While Calderon was disappointed with their offense, Netherlands mentor Avital Selinger offered no excuses.

"We played really great, it’s just that Cuba was better in the end," said Selinger, whose Dutch team’s best finish in the international arena was fifth in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Italy blasted Thailand, 25-12, 25-10, 25-18, in the other game to even its card to 1-1. The Thais took their second straight loss.

After seizing the opening set, the Dutch came roaring back with a vicious attacking game that saw them grab the next two sets and a 2-1 lead.

Power-hitting Francien Huurman, and tall, long-limbed and pretty Manon Flier, who could pass as a movie star in the Philippines, spearheaded the Netherlands’ charge but the two couldn’t get the job done down the stretch.

After leading the Dutch to a 13-11 lead and two points away from a win, Flier vanished in the face of the Cubans’ impenetrable net defense, leaving Huurman to fire away at will at the net.

But Huurman, the oldest in the team at 30 who has 218 international stints, was blocked three times — two by Carillo and one by Barros — enabling the Cubans to seize the last four points — and the win.

A day after an unimpressive effort in a 25-19, 25-17, 25-17 victory over the Thais, skipper Yumilka Ruiz returned with a vengeance as she spewed 14 of her 16 hits on kills for the Cubans, winners of this event in 1993 and 2000.

But more than the outstanding effort by Ruiz, the most veteran of the team with a total of 105 games including 14 in the Olympics and 11 in the World Championships, it was defending Pan-American Games champion’s rock-solid net defense that spelled the difference.