Panama wins to Nicaragua at AFECAVOL WCQT

BELIZE CITY, Belize, September 28, 2016. – Panama won to Nicaragua in five sets (25-19, 23-25, 23-25, 25-18, 15-7) on day five of the AFECAVOL Men’s FIVB World Championship qualification tournament in St. Catherine Academy Center of Belize City.

Panama and Nicaragua had an irregular performance, with ups and downs, turning the actions slow. Nicaragua’s resilient spikers were able to avoid Panama’s blockers and hurting their opponents’ defense. Panama finally managed more consistency to take their second win of the event for a 2-3 record; Nicaragua has 0-4 record.

Panama held advantage in kills (63-50), blocks (9-4) and in serves (3-1), while scoring on 36 opponent errors and limiting their own to 38.

Leading all scorers was outside hitter Oswald Marshall of Panama with impressive 24 points, on 21 kills and 3 blocks, his teammate middle blocker Otto Othon tallied 17 points, on 14 kills, 2 blocks and one ace. Outside hitter Tito Valdivia led Nicaragua with 14 points and opposite player Denis Garcia scored 11 points.

Nicaragua (0-4) will play to Dominican Republic (2-1) on Thursday and Panama (2-3) will face Guatemala (4-0)

Otto Othon of Panama: “It was physically challenging, we battled the five sets entirely because they worked with our blocking very well and we needed to close our defense. We had to make adjustments to win, I changed from middle blocker to opposite and that way we were more consistent”.

Horacio Angulo, coach of Panama: “My team takes advantage, we score consecutive points and gets into good rhythm, but the mental factor of the game has difficulties; the guys can’t keep focus. Nicaragua attacks very close on the net, making our blocking less effective and giving us a hard time”.