Mexico Tops Costa Rica

Long Beach, California, May 11, 2012 – Mexico secured a 25-19, 25-19, 25-16 victory over Costa Rica Friday afternoon in the 5-8 Classification Round of the NORCECA Men’s Continental Olympic Qualification Tournament being held May 7-12 at Long Beach, Calif.

Mexico was led by Carlos Guerra’s 15 points, followed by Daniel Vargas’ 11 points. Richard Smith Hall contributed 11 points for Costa Rica and Esteban Escobar added nine points.

Mexico was dominant at the service line with a 7-1 ace advantage to go with a 7-5 edge in blocks.

Mexico will now play on Saturday at 15:00 for fifth place against the winner of Dominican Republic and Trinidad & Tobago played later today. Costa Rica will play the loser of Dominican Republic and Trinidad & Tobago at 13:00 on Saturday.

“The result is what we expected, but we expected to play better today,” Mexico captain Gerardo Contreras said. “We are pretty pleased with the 3-0 win today. We did not lose our focus in looking ahead to tomorrow’s harder match.”

“I am happy with the win today,” Mexico coach Jorge Miguel Azair said. “The match gave us a chance to rotate in all the players and get ready for tomorrow.”

“This was a very important match for us,” Costa Rica captain Pablo Zumbado said. “We expected to improve in some areas, and we did correct some things from the first match with Mexico earlier in the tournament.”

“Congratulations to Mexico,” Costa Rica captain Cesar Salas said. “one of the things we wanted to correct in this match was the reception issues we had in the first match against Mexico, and we were able to do. However, we made too many errors in other areas. I am happy to have had this experience to play these matches against Mexico, which is a superior team to Costa Rica, as we can learn from them for the future.”