Honduras puts away Guadeloupe to take Group N

POINTE-A - PITRE, Guadeloupe, June 16, 2013- Honduras shrugged off an earlier defeat to Guadeloupe to win group N of the World Championship qualification in convincing and comprehensive manner - 3-0 (25-21, 25-14 and 25-11) in the finals.

The gold medal match was interestingly set up when Guadeloupe beat Honduras 3-2   preliminary round and both coaches promised a different showing for the final game and it certainly was.

Carlos Osario lived up to his billing as a top player with 18 points (17 spikes) as the Central American jumped out to sizeable leads in each game and never looked back.

Evans Torres was his aide with 10 points of his own.

For Guadeloupe Alexandre Watson and Heinrick Perrot ignited the crowd whenever they spiked but this was only 10 times when they each had 5 effective spikes.

Coach Rony Martinez expressed satisfaction at achieving the trip's primary objective.

"We came here with winning gold in this group as our main purpose and we did just that. This time around our reception was far better that in the morning. Another factor that made a difference was the time of day. We are totally unaccustomed to play at that time so we were a bit out of rhythm then. Moreover the attitude among the team was far better. We knew that Guadeloupe was a strong team and we had to raise our level to win and we did," he accounted.

Coach Oliver Ismael of Guadeloupe admitted that Honduras was the stronger team on the night. "We tried our uttermost but it is very difficult playing a team that is few notches above you especially when they have taken a sizeable lead. Their reception was near perfect and once they got control of the ball it was hard to comeback against a team of that caliber," he said.

Honduras qualifies automatically for the next round of matches while Guadeloupe has to await some other  group results before it could be assured of one of the four best second place finishers.