Nicaragua suffers to beat El Salvador

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, October 10, 2014. -  Nicaragua started off with difficulties to beat El Salvador 3-1 (23-25, 25-21, 25-13, 25-10) at the Women’s XVIII Central American Cup.

An exciting first set won by El Salvador brushing aside a ten point deficit as Nicaragua was off their usual rhythm. Nicaragua struggled to be in control of the actions up to the third and fourth set with a strong come back to improve their win-loss record to 4-1.

Nicaragua gained their authority with huge advantage in kills (51-39) and in blocking (13-3); both team scored 4 points via aces. El Salvador finished with 30 errors while Nicaragua had 23.

Outside hitter Amalia Hernadez was Nicaragua’s best scorer with 24 points; also with double figures, middle blocker Helen Traña (14), setter Lolette Rodriguez (13) and captain Claudia Noguera (11).  Adriana Flores topped El Salvador with 21 points.

Noguera admitted her team was overconfident “we should face each match with the same energy, we lacked concentration in the beginning and we finally got into rhythm motivated that we’ve come this far with good results”.

Denise Rogel was invited to the press conference as captain Adriana Flores was being treated for a minor injury. Rogel said “We battled stronger in the first two sets, but we lost the confidence in ourselves letting Nicaragua grow. We need to practice harder to finish winning”.

“In sports there’s no small opponent, my team was too relaxed and they learned today that victories don’t come outside the court speculating on results. We fell into El Salvador’s game and they did a swell job in the first and second sets; no team here comes out giving less than their best” said coach Rene Quintana of Nicaragua.

Coach Alexander Polanco of El Salvador said he is very satisfied with their improvement “I had little time to practice with them and the aspects that are missing can be improved with hard work, the team is capable of better results and they proved it today with great effort. Our serves were a good weapon as we managed to hurt Nicaragua”.