Guatemala to play NORCECA U19 quarterfinals

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, June 8, 2018.- Guatemala will play the NORCECA U19 Boys’ Continental Championship quarterfinals after defeating Honduras 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-18, 25-11) in pool-play.

Guatemala (1-2) finished third place in pool B and awaits for either Costa Rica or Puerto Rico to play in quarterfinals. Honduras (0-3) concludes the event win-less.

With a huge 59-21 margin in attacks and benefiting from 43 opponent errors, Guatemala won to Honduras who did better in blocking with 10-6 advantage. Guatemala also prevailed in serves 6-1 and Honduras scored on 27 Guatemalan unforced errors.

Wing spiker David Ismalej of Guatemala scored a match-high of 23 points. Also contributing to Guatemala’s victory was wing spiker Kevin Hoil with 15 points, middle blocker Edwin Mejía with 13 points and opposite José Francisco Zuñiga with 10 points. Middle blocker Jorge Santos scored 9 points for Honduras.

Guatemala´s captain David Ismalej said “our serves and attacks were effective; we need to improve in receiving. We will work hard and do our best to reach semifinals”.

Luis Fernando Castañeda Head coach of Guatemala said this win is really important “I am satisfied to keep on moving forward. We were strong to make sure and make it into quarterfinals; we were hoping to win 3-0.  Our attacks were very effective and we had strength in serving”.

Alejandro Castillo coach of Honduras indicated that his team learned a lot “sadly we lost to Guatemala, they have better game level. Facing Cuba and United States contributes to our development”.

Captain Allan Escoto of Honduras hoped to do it better against Guatemala, “despite winning one set, we couldn’t execute our game plan, we lacked energy”.