Panama claims first win beating Honduras

 

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, October 2, 2019.- Panama claimed their first win beating Honduras 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-23) at the eighteenth AFECAVOL U21 Central American Championship at FESAVOL Gymnasium in San Salvador, El Salvador.

 

Panama struggled in set three to overcome Honduras blockers but kept their focus on pocketing their first victory. Panama won five points in ranking to even their win-loss record 1-1 while Honduras remains win-less with 0-3 record.

 

Panama´s hitters carried out a strong performance dominating Honduras by overwhelming 38-19 margin; still Honduras blockers managed a 12-9 advantage. Panama aced 5 scoring points and committed fewer errors (23-33) than Honduras.

 

Outside hitter Ivan Ortega led Panama’s attackers with 15 points including 14 kills and captain José Vasquez chipped in with 12 points including 9 kills and 2 blocks. Luis Orellana was the only player of Honduras that scored double-digits with a total of 11 points.

 

Panama’s (1-1) will face Belize (0-3) on day three of competition and Honduras (0-3) will face defending champion Nicaragua (2-0).

 

Javier Polo, Head Coach of Panama: “In today’s practice we focused on defense because it wasn’t well adjusted in our first performance and we also made some position changes. We struggled during the third set because our setter’s mind changed; he wanted to use another game system that we haven’t practice”.

 

Osiel Vasquez, Head Coach of Honduras: “In this age-group we must score between 10 or 12 points performing the complex one (relation passing-attacking) and statistically we are below that, we can’t win. Our blocking and defense are working very well. The only thing left for us is winning, but we must be strong in attacking and we will continue to practice to finish in the top four of the tournament”.