A competitive women’s tournament awaits in AFECAVOL

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 15, 2019 - All the coaches agreed on that the XVIII Central American Volleyball Championship that will be held at Gym # 2 Jorge Galeano of the Olympic city in Tegucigalpa, is going to be a fairly even and competitive tournament.

Six countries will be competing from Tuesday on looking for a spot in the medal table which currently belongs to Costa Rica as two time defending champions (2015, 2017), Honduras with the Silver and Guatemala with the Bronze.

Of the 17 tournaments that have been contested, only 3 countries have been able to win the title with Costa Rica at the top of the list with 9 gold medals followed by Guatemala with five titles and Panama with two. The event was not held in 2001.

Opening day will start the day at 3 pm with the game between Guatemala and El Salvador. At 5:00 pm Belize face against Costa Rica and in the stellar game, at 7:00 pm, the local team (Honduras) hosts Nicaragua.

Eric Hernandez, coach of El Salvador said: "The tournament will be quite competitive, there are teams with enough changes. We will have to do a lot of work to be among the top two places".

William Fernandez, coach of Guatemala commented: "The tournament is very strong, the teams are now fairly even and the games have leveled out. We hope to be among the top four places of the tournament".

Lupita Quan, assistant coach of Belize expressed: "We are quite excited, we know that they are quite young and that they have prepared, we come to fight to achieve the best historical position in our country. The tournament is pretty even."

Claudia Noguera, coach of Nicaragua said: "This category is quite even, all teams want to surprise. Our team is quite young, with 7 players in the youth's category, even with that we hope to exceed what was achieved two years ago"

Kareem Richards, coach of Costa Rica said: "It is a very even tournament, nothing is secret, everyone is well prepared, we are willing to do our best, our team has prepared well enough, we are aware of the pressure we have for recent titles in this category, but we do not want to see it that way, we're going to play one game at a time."

Catarine Leiva, coach of Honduras said: "We hope to carry out this tournament with great enthusiasm and give our country a much needed joy, I hope the team responds, changes have been made and have trained for the players to respond, and to maintain a constant level throughout the tournament."

Catarine Leiva, entrenadora de Honduras expuso “esperamos llevar a cabo este torneo con mucho entusiasmo y darle a nuestro país una alegría que tanto necesita, espero que el equipo responda, se han hecho cambios y se ha entrenado para que las jugadoras respondan, y que logren mantener un nivel constante durante todo el torneo”.