Nicaragua defeats Panama for second win

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, August 8, 2014.- Nicaragua defeated Panama 3-1 (25-23, 16-25, 25-19, 25-18) for their second win at the II Women’s U-23 AFECAVOL Central American Championship at Jorge A. Galeano Gymnasium in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

It was a very tight match in the beginning, Nicaragua found a better rhythm after losing the second set to Panama’s offensive serves, taking another four set win in the tournament. Nicaragua has 8 points with a 2-0 win-loss record, while Panama obtained their first point and stands with a 0-2 win-loss record.

Nicaragua held advantage only attacks by 36-24 and Panama dominated the other categories by 4-3 in blocks and 12-9 in serves.

Nicaragua’s middle blocker Elianny Lopez led her team’s victory with 11 points, followed by outside hitter Katy Gonzalez with 10 points. Middle Blocker Angela Evans with a match-high led Panama’s scorers with 14 points.

Katy Gonzalez, captain of Nicaragua said that today they had difficulties in their reception “I know we take a second win, but today Panama pushed very hard with their serves and our reception failed a lot. Our goal is to win a medal and we are moving forward to accomplish it”.

“Our attitude is what’s causing us our two losses, we need to motivate us more and I believe by winning the second set with a huge advantage we proved we can do better. We need to gain confidence” indicated the Panamanian captain Maria Añino.

Nicaragua’s coach Claudia Noguera said to be pleased with their victory “we are moving one game at a time. Panama is much taller than us and we were focused on that. They were able to dominate the second set with serves and our reception had many mistakes. For tomorrow will look for another win and hopefully with a better result”.

Panamanian coach Edgar Restrepo said “we lack practice; all the teams here are better prepared than ours, this is something we need to improve back home, but still we have a team that can battle hard. Our objective was to making Nicaragua fail in their passing and we managed to do it in the second set. Nicaragua won very well while we performed with many errors.