Costa Rica defeats Guatemala and will play for fifth place

AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico. June 22, 2018.- Costa Rica defeated Guatemala 3-0 (25-13, 25-13, 25-6)      and will play for fifth place at the Women’s NORCECA U20 Continental Championship in Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Costa Rica will play for fifth place on the last day of competition against the winner between Honduras and Puerto Rico.

Costa Rica had no setbacks in beating Guatemala jumping to a huge advantage in each set. Costa Rica was too much for Guatemala finishing with huge margins in every category; 29-14 in attacks, 7-1 in blocks and 10-2 in aces. Costa Rica limited their errors to 14 while scoring on 29 Guatemalan errors.

Opposite player Santa Volkovs led Costa Rica with 12 points, joined by middle blocker Susan Alpizar with 11 points and wing spiker Edya Espinoza contributed with 7 points. Arianne Tenenbaum scored four points for Guatemala.

Andrés López head coach of Costa Rica: “The final score was commanding; I am satisfied with the outcome. At the Central American championship we lost to Guatemala, my girls had a better disposition in following instructions here. This was one of our goals; defeat the teams from our zone”.

Opposite player Santa Volkovs of Costa Rica: “Our attitude was our strongest weapon in beating Guatemala. In other interviews, our captain has said that we haven’t lost our serenity and today we confirm it once again. We controlled every aspect of the game, we did it well”.

Wing spiker Arianne Tenenbaum of Guatemala: “It’s a really tough loss, we weren’t expecting this result. Our mental state was off, we really pressured ourselves because we wanted badly to beat Costa Rica. Guatemala was prepared, we knew what to execute, and we need to find confidence in our skills”.

William Fernández head coach of Guatemala: “We were expecting the tournament to be hard, but not to lose this way against Costa Rica; this score is acceptable against a more powerful opponent. My player’s attitude was really bad and they didn’t follow our tactical plan”.