Dominican Rep. NT 2019

  • hi guys,


    now that VNL has ended its first weekend, we saw the new NT of DR. some new players, some returning players that were absent last few years, and some that are missing.


    where are gina mambru and annerys valdez? have they retired?


    ana binet, brenda castillo and winnifer fernandez?


    marianne fersola?

  • brenda castillo has become a mother recently, so hasn't trained yet

    I had no idea lol I feel like most info coming from DOM is always kinda... secretive? You never know what's going on, just see how ossubtus is full of questions here lol

  • i ask a lot of questions because it seems i'm one of the few that follow DOM here, i guess, but there's not a lot of information on these boards. i wish other posters from DR would post more updates.


    so is this the first time DR has a pro league? any rosters?


    btw i don't know how many DR players are playing abroad. how did jineiry, brayelin and gonzalez do in europe? i don't know where marte, rivera, de la cruz are playing, i know pena is in brazil.

  • I think the Dominican league ended their second season this year. A lot of the NT players play/played there these last 2 seasons, including Rivera, Castillo and the likes. I believe Bethania was in Indonesia? But I might be wrong.

  • thanks, my love, did you watch the DOM x BRA match? bethania was a monster -- she was amazing. it looked like it was going to a 5th set, it was a good match.


    don't stay up too late!

    I did! Zé talked very highly of her afterwards, she was indeed amazing. I wish the match had gone to a tie-break too and Gabi would be able to cross the 30 points mark, but oh well...


    I'm going to bed soon!

  • i ask a lot of questions because it seems i'm one of the few that follow DOM here, i guess, but there's not a lot of information on these boards. i wish other posters from DR would post more updates.


    so is this the first time DR has a pro league? any rosters?


    btw i don't know how many DR players are playing abroad. how did jineiry, brayelin and gonzalez do in europe? i don't know where marte, rivera, de la cruz are playing, i know pena is in brazil.


    If I am not wrong, this is the second time DOM presents a pro league. The league only has 4 teams and they played against each other more than 6 times. Previously, there was a draft in order to decide which players will be part of each team.

    Almost every single DOM player was in that league. The level isnt so high because there are a lot of youngsters as well as old players who are in bad shape. Players that were part of the DOM NT in Athens 2004 or even before.

    I think the only ones who played abroad this season in a competitive league were Pena (in Brazil, who did more than a decent job there, she got a lot of vivavoleis and she was the scorer of Rio in many matches), Jiniery, Brayelin and Gonzales in Aydin, Turkey (they played the relegation games because their team was 10/12 in the league).

    In the other hand, Bethania played in Indonesia (I dont know the level of that league), while Marte and Lisvel Eve in the peruvian league. I dont know in which position these last 3 players finished the season with their teams.

    There were also some dominicans in the second division of Peru, but I dont recall their names. But they came back to DR in order to play the play off of their league.

    Castillo didnt play this year because she is still in the post pregnancy phase.

    That's all what I know. I hope it has helped you.

  • ossubtus since I do follow Turkish league I can tell a bit about the performance of the Dominicans that were in Aydın, indeed Jiniery, Brayelin and Gonzales were the girls here. They ended 10/12 as Leonardo.D said and played relegation round. The team despite being 10th was not terrible, they just had a lot of ups and downs, they could play tiebreak one week with Fenerbahçe and then lose to Karayollari next week. The bad reception was the main problem here, bad is to put it lightly, it was actually horrible lol.


    Brayelin Martinez stood out between the three, she had a really really great season imo offense wise particularly. She scored more then Gonzales almost every match and she is Opp. Gonzales was the weak link for Aydin, they had bad reception already but the attack lacked too sometimes because Gonzales was not great (Aydın already replaced her immediately as transfer season started), she improved a bit near the end of the season though. Jiniery Martinez did an ok job but should have contributed more as well, bad reception is also faulty here.


    Other then that they did well in Europe actually, despite being in relegation round in Turkey, Aydın made the finale of CEV Challenge Cup where they lost the cup only to Italian 4/12 Monza.

  • Brenda Castillo gave birth in mid February she started training few weeks ago i know this because of her Instagram posts; a person close to her said that she is already signed to an Italian club for next season dont know which one. i hope she is able to play in the Olympics qualifications Tournament but is unlikely.


    Players who did not make the vnl team like Mambru, Vargas, Dominguez are currently training and probably will have a chance to play in futures regional competitions like panamerican cup and panamerican games. the new players like Moreno (OH) and Perez (SETTER) Rodriguez (MB) did great in the local league so i guess they earned their spot in the team.


    The pro League, started in 2018 with 4 clubs, no foreing players yet. this year champion is Club Mirador with a lot of youngsters and De la Cruz i think she scored at least 30 points in the last game here a link to a part of the final match if you are interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKFck3eCOg4&t=4133s.


    I was vacationing in Rio de Janerio so i went all the way to Brasilia to the vnl games, it was worth it just to be able to see the first victory against Brasil i would love to see them play like that every match but unfortunately the are very inconsistent.

  • thanks all for your replies. i'm wondering, how did bethania do last season in ITA? why did she play in indonesia? i thought indonesia league is where washed-up or players past their peak will go ? i think mari & paula, and logan tom, played there YEARS PAST their peak?


    i wonder if former NT members played in the domestic league this season, like sidarka nunez, cindy rondon, echenique, etc.

  • Why isn't Madeline Guillen already in senior NT? She is just 18 years old but I think she's better than Rivera and some others. I remember her two years ago at the U18 WCH and she was simply amazing. Definitely one of the biggest talents of her generation together with Karakurt and Pietrini. But after those WCH I haven't heard of her anymore.

  • Guillen is just 1 year younger than Pietrini and same age as Fahr. Like the two Italians she should be given the chance to play with the "adults" IMO, she is too good to be wasted in youth competitions. She could be very useful for Dominican NT ar the next Olympics 2020, as Bethania is getting older and she's past her prime now.

  • Why isn't Madeline Guillen already in senior NT? She is just 18 years old but I think she's better than Rivera and some others. I remember her two years ago at the U18 WCH and she was simply amazing. Definitely one of the biggest talents of her generation together with Karakurt and Pietrini. But after those WCH I haven't heard of her anymore.

    AFAIK Guillen suffered a serious knee injury in that tournament back then, so probably this slowed down her development.

  • Oh I didn't know she had such a bad injury :white: But good to know that she is fully recovered now:super:

    She should definitely be called to NT even if she is just 18 yo, she might be already better than both Brayelin Martinez and De La Cruz. Her jumping/spiking skills are insane.