El Salvador defeats Nicaragua

PANAMA CITY, Panama, October 21, 2017 - El Salvador (2-2) got into the medal-battle by beating Nicaragua (0-4) by 3-0 (25-23, 25-15, 25-14) in the first meeting of the Saturday session in the XII Central American U19 Men's Volleyball Championship.

After the close first set, Nicaragua lowered their level of play and the Salvadorans took the opportunity to establish distance and take the victory that leaves them with options of medal for their match against Costa Rica in the afternoon.                               

Captain Diego Guidos is still the referent of the attack of El Salvador, this time with 21 points, and   seven of Diego Navarro. Marcial Sandoval with 11 and Josué Cano with 10, were the best for Nicaragua who gave 33 points for errors, 21 of their opponents. El Salvador dominated the attack 29-26, blocking 10-2 and were equal (3-3) in the service.

Ulises Trujillo, coach of El Salvador, said that "we came relaxed, we did not want to wear more players after the two games yesterday and we take things slowly. After the first set in which we recovered from three points down, that helped us to take confidence and that they were applied to the basic things of volleyball: receipt, pass and attack.

The coach of Nicaragua, Osman Hernandez, said that "the team has not played as expected. Yesterday we finished the match late and today we played in the first hour. That left tired our main players who fell and failed to raise the level.

Nicaragua is the defending champion of the tournament and Hernandez added that "I think no one expected to see Nicaragua without victories in this tournament, but we had an idea of ​​the team we brought and we did not meet expectations. We do not think we have a real leader in the team".