Honduras takes on Panama in straight sets

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, August 8, 2016. - Honduras defeated Panama 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-13) on day three of the AFECAVOL Women’s U23 Central American Championship at Gimnasio 7 de Diciembre Alfonso Gordillo.

Actions were even in the starting set, but Panamanian players went losing communication and Honduras earned more spaces for effective shots, especially in the third set when they held a huge eleven point advantage.  

Honduras serves were their best skill with an overwhelming 12-6 advantage; they also dominated in spikes with 30-24 margin and scored on 31 opponent errors while limiting their own to 15.  Panama topped in blocking 7-2.

The only two players with double figures were Cecille Johnson of Honduras with 18 points and Yileen Ng of Panama with 11 points.

Honduras (2-1) will rest on Tuesday and Panama (0-3) faces Guatemala (2-0).

Head Coach Marcos Tejeda said to be satisfied, “we had a long talk in the morning, the girls needed to realize what is in stake and they performed better, the understood the message. They played united and showed they are capable of doing better. Now is when the tournament will get interesting, the best is yet to come”.

“We were more relaxed, we had fun and we found our game” started saying captain Lourdes Morales of Honduras. “We performed every skill well” she added.

Yileen Ng captain of Panama insisted that her team lacks attitude, “we started strong but when we made a mistake, we lost motivation”.

Coach Juan Giron of Panama explained that his players stand out in each of their provinces and they don’t work as a team “there has been little process; we need to know one another more. They aren’t used to these challenging tournaments. In the first set our fast plays worked pretty well; but when each player does their own thing they begin to fall out of our game structure and that’s when we start failing”.