Costa Rica beat El Salvador in first victory at AFECAVOL U23
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, September 17, 2018.- Costa Rica beat
El Salvador 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-18) in their first victory at
the Men’s U23 AFECAVOL Central American Championship at Teodoro
Palacios Flores in Guatemala City.
On day two of the event, Costa Rica improved their win-loss
record to 1-1 while El Salvador dropped to 0-2. Costa Rica had a
firm and disciplined performance but still lacked consistency to
remain ahead as El Salvador recovered from a six point deficit
(15-21) in set one and four point deficit (13-17) in set three.
Costa Rica prevailed on 34-23 margin in spikes, 9-4 in blocks
and a huge 7-0 advantage in aces. El Salvador committed fewer
errors (25-32) than Costa Rica.
Outside hitter Mariano Salas was Costa Rica’s leading scorer
with 12 points including 9 kills, followed by middle blocker
Jason Brown and outside hitter Elder Quiros with 9 points
apiece. Outside hitter Josue Palma and opposite player Banner
Godoy led El Salvador with 8 points each.
Costa Rica’s (1-1) next opponent is Nicaragua (1-0) and El
Salvador’s (0-2) is Guatemala.
“Clearly, we felt more comfortable” said captain Jason Brown of
Costa Rica; “we were less anxious than yesterday and things were
much better, this result gives the confidence we need for the
rest of our matches. Usually we are too relaxed because we feel
the game is already won, we have difficulties to keep up with
the same intensity. We want to keep the same rhythm which we
started with, from less to more”.
Juan Acuña, head coach of Costa Rica said they have been working
to improve the men’s division “yesterday’s opponent, Honduras,
has improved and it was much more even game level; my team is
well prepared, we started strong but we still need to keep our
concentration. We closed really well playing our system; the
results will come soon because we have worked hard and with our
Federation’s support. I consider that six players from here will
be part of our senior team in November”.
Banner Godoy, El Salvador’s captain said “today we practiced
better with our setter and we improved our spiking,
unfortunately our receivers and libero didn’t perform as
expected; we failed in reception and defense. We took advantage
of Costa Rica’s errors but we also allowed too many points. We
will practice better because we will face Guatemala tomorrow,
the strongest team of the competition”.
Coad Feridth Alabi of El Salvador indicated “we are having
difficulties to start the game, the boys were lazy and failed in
receiving well; we committed too many errors in the first set
allowing seven points on the net. Now we have to study our next
opponent (Guatemala) and make out the best in practice”. |