Coaches expect strong fight for tickets to the U18 World Champ

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras. August 26, 2018 - The coaches of the eight national teams that participate in the NORCECA U-18 Women's Continental Championship agree on the importance of competing at this level, which represents the first opportunity for international warm-up for many players.

They also indicated that it will be a strong battle for the dispute of the two tickets for the FIVB World Championship of 2019 in Egypt.

Osiel Vásquez, Honduras: "Our goal is to be among the first five positions, with the change to two groups we intend to be second in our side since we have almost the same level of other two teams like Nicaragua and Barbados. We know that the United States is strong. Our girls were Central American champions last year and we have 60 percent of that team, we have concentrated on looking for taller players, although with less experience in the game."

Sandra Umaña, Costa Rica: "We took this tournament as a fundamental part of the girls' growth. Knowing that we are faced with powers is part of the training and learning of our players. This type of matches will make the girls, who will be the base of the selection, to grow each one of them."

Claudia Noguera, Nicaragua: "It is very satisfying to come to events of this level. We hope this motivates the girls to continue training for future tournaments. It is the first time we are in a female U18, although we were already in a U20, so our goal is to try to climb the ranking."

Alexandre Ceccato, Dominican Republic: "Our goal is to get one of the tickets to the World Champ. We are going to try it as the group got a little more complicated, but we have to play all the games the same, we have to play them and keep improving every day. It's a young group, we only have two players who have been in a World Champ, but the idea is that they have experience here."

Jaime Echevarría, Cuba: "We are in a group with selections that have history in these tournaments. The other teams have always been in the first places, but our goal is to get one of the two places in the World Championship. Our team is very young, has an average age of 14.8 years; three have been in the U20 Cup and one in the U23, but we have a very good motivation and have adapted well to the trip".

Anthazia Mason, Barbados: “We have a good opportunity to qualify in our group. This is a good experience, we must take advantage of the opportunities that they give us. They just need to get over the nerves of the first game. We are in the process of reconstruction, our players came to this, to play, we have six games and we always want to keep on top of the Caribbean. We know it is not easy. Unfortunately they have not had competition before this tournament, but we are willing to play and compete at the highest level."

Dale Melnick, Canada: “It is so excited, it's so wonderful opportunity to bring our young athletes back into Norceca. Perhaps this is beautiful and wonderful host and a pretty also pleasant experience.  The team are young; we have three girls with fourteen years and other will have sixteen in this days. Our group is fine, we have to be careful with each team. Then we meet the other group team and we think we are among the first places”.

James Stone, de Estados Unidos:  “We have a very young team the very inexperienced team. So I have no expectations, I think this is for most of the teams, for they were your first international competitions. Well I mean for all teams our goal is to win and we're trying to do our own.  But we don't know others team very well.  Certainly don't know the very well you know so we hope to finish top to qualify and hopefully we're good enough to do that".