Peru outplays Trinidad and Tobago in their debut

ICA, Peru, September 7, 2014. - Hosts Peru outplayed Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 (25-7, 25-15, 25-18) in their debut at the Second Women’s U-23 Pan American Cup at Jose Oliva Razzeto Coliseum in the city of Ica.

Peru had no complications to dominate Trinidad and Tobago in their first presentation in Pool A. The home team had a solid performance and coach Natalia Malaga took the opportunity to use substitute players to restructure. Trinidad and Tobago had better moments in the last two sets.

Peru held a huge advantage in kills by 37-16 and in service points by 11-3, they were also more effective in the blocking category by 9-5.

Leading Peru’s scorers were middle blocker Andrea Urrutia and outside hitter Angela Leyva with 15 and 14 points respectively. Outside hitter Channon Thompson led Trinidad and Tobago with 9 points.

Olympic medalist Natalia Malaga, head coach of Peru said “I feel satisfied with the result today but we have to continue advancing to reach our goal which is to qualify for the world championship and using substitute players to finish the second set was to give these young players more exposure to gain experience in these tournaments”.

Channon Thompson, Trinidad and Tobago’s captain “I feel proud of my team, we are young and lack experience in international tournaments, so we want to benefit the most that we can here. We had a slow start in the first set, but we built little by little”.

Angela Leyva, young captian of the local team indicated “Trinidad and Tobago has been improving more and more, today our reception did well and our blocking showed that we’ve been working daily to improve and win this championship”.

Ali Saleem, head coach of Trinidad and Tobago manifested “for most of my players this is their first international experience, we practiced only one month and only my captain has experience in these events. That’s why even if we lose matches we win in development and growth of our team”.