Nicaragua defeats Martinique for seventh place

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, July 12, 2014. -  Nicaragua defeated Martinique 3-0 (25-22, 25-18, 25-23) at the Women’s U-20 NORCECA Continental Championship for seventh place at Teodoro Palacios Flores Gymnasium on Saturday.

Nicaragua came out on top Martinique for their second victory, finishing the tournament with a 2-2 win-loss record and seventh place. The victory wasn’t easy for the Central American team as Martinique put up a fight.

Nicaragua prevailed as they managed fewer errors (28) than Martinique (40). Nicaragua held advantage of 30-21 in spikes while Martinique out-blocked Nicaragua by 7-3 and was better in serves also by 7-2.

Both teams were led by their captains, Nicaragua’s Florelisa Smith with 12 points and Martinique’s Maelle Paulin with 11 points.

“I’m not satisfied, we lacked communication, we didn’t perform well, we had bad attitude and the score kept always close” said Smith.

Maelle Paulin on the other hand said to be both satisfied and disappointed “this was our best performance in the tournament, but we leave with the loss and I believe we could have won, I can’t explain what’s missing in our team”.

“We knew the tournament was going to be difficult for us and this was the position we set for Nicaragua, we will climb in our ranking and we should continue to work hard back home. Congratulations to Martinique, they looked very good today” said coach Claudia Noguera.

Coach Tania Vileronce said “everyone leaves pleased, today we performed like a real team, we proved that Martinique plays at the same level as Nicaragua.”