Honduras defeats Guatemala in five set comeback

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, September 9, 2017. - Honduras defeated Guatemala with a comeback win in five sets (20-25, 22-25, 26-24, 25-22, 15-8) at the XVII AFECAVOL U-21 Men’s Central American Championship at the IND Volleyball venue in Managua, Nicaragua.

Honduras recovered from a 0-2 set deficit with a comeback victory over Guatemala; it was up to the last points in the tie-break that Honduras held a significant margin as the entire match remained very tight.

Honduras and Guatemala finish the tournament with 3-3 win-loss record. Guatemala accumulates 17 points in ranking while Honduras ends with 14 points.

Honduras leading scorers were Alex Godoy with 15 points, Andres Chinchilla and Jose Espinal with 13 points each. Edgar Maldonado scored a match-high of 26 points for Guatemala.

Guatemala held a 63-47 advantage in spikes, while Honduras led in blocking (12-6) and serves (6-3).

Captain David Alvarado of Guatemala sadly expressed “unfortunately we had a bad attitude, after winning two sets we thought we had already won the match; we weren’t able to close, we committed many unforced errors and we lost”.

Daniel Salinas, captain of Honduras said “our high energy was crucial in tonight’s victory, we started off unmotivated but we slowly improved and started to enjoy playing; unfortunately we did not reach to podium which was our main goal”.