Costa Rica downs Guatemala at AFECAVOL U-18

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, August 18, 2017.- Costa Rica downed Guatemala 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-9, 25-21) on the last match of the morning session on day two of the XII AFECAVOL Girls’ U-18 Central American Championship.

Guatemala pushed harder in set three after losing set two with overwhelming margin, but their great effort was not enough to reach a tie-break.

Costa Rica managed to hold off Guatemala’s leading spiker Paola Alvarado, with huge advantage of 13-3 in blocking as well as 11-4 in serves and with 32-26 margin in spikes. Both teams committed similar amount of unforced errors, Costa Rica finished with 43 and Guatemala with 42.

Costa Rica once again distributed their offense between several players; opposite Ana Rojas scoring 14 points, outside hitter Mary Alfaro and middle blocker Priscila Alfaro scored 12 points apiece. Guatemala’s top scorer was outside hitter Paola Alvarado with a match-high of 16 points.

Defending champions have 2-0 record and 8 points, Guatemala drops to 1-1 record and 6 points.

Pamela Padilla, captain of Costa Rica: “We adjusted our defense and reception pretty well. Our coach instructed us to move more, yesterday we were too stiff.  Our attitude was much better and winning our second match makes us very happy. Now we will face Belize and we are ready to move forward”.

Mario Romero, coach of Costa Rica: “Our serves were strong, we managed to stop Guatemala’s strongest player with effective blocking; she was off balance and being the leader, all the rest followed. My team followed our tactic instructions to perfection”.

Julio Dominguez, coach of Guatemala: “There is no discussion that Costa Rica was better. I consider that not only one player carries the result on her back, we distributed our game, the team did not respond on crucial points. The girls need to get a grip and have more character to see that they are capable of winning, they haven’t realized their strength in spikes and serves, they haven’t executed on their virtues”.