Venezuela beat Costa Rica in a battle in front of the net

CORDOBA, Mexico, November 19, 2014 - Venezuela defeated Costa Rica 3-1 (25-19, 25-22, 22-25, 25-19) in the classification round for places 5 to 8 at the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games.

On the Venezuelan side, the best scorer was Roslandy Acosta with a total of 21 points, while Maria Jose Perez tallied 13. Captain Desiree Glod and Middle Blocker Yesica Paz, scored 11 apiece.

Verania and Angela Willis topped Costa Rica with a total of  18 points.  Venezuelan serving strategy outclassed Costa Rica in the first two sets. Costa Rica recovered and finished with a 5-4 advantage. Same thing happened with the blocking game (8-4 for Costa Rica). However, the Central American squad surrendered 30 points by errors.

“If you have an average of 10 points by mistake against a team like Venezuela it is impossible to win, because Venezuela is very powerful”, said Horacio Bastit, coach of Costa Rica. “It was a not so typical match. We began a little bit cold, we played with no speed, but everything was decided in front of the net,” remarked Sergio Rivero, coach of Venezuela.

“This was a another match against a very strong team, we fought in front of the net, however We were out of order on the court. We avoided to get in trouble against their service, but made some other mistakes,” Angela Willis stated.

“Fortunatelly this was a victory, the first one for us. We had lost our first match against Dominican Republic, it was a fatality. The same happened against Cuba and Colombia, that dominated us. But today this was our best performance,” Desiree Glod, captain of Venezuela stated.