Second solid performance for Guatemala

BELIZE CITY, Belize, September 26, 2016.- Guatemala had another solid performance at the AFECAVOL Men’s FIVB World Championship qualification tournament, beating Honduras 3-0 (25-15, 25-18, 25-16) at St. Catherine Academy Center in Belize City.

Guatemala performed again with powerful kills and good tactics to remain unbeaten with 2-0 win-loss record. Guatemala struck Honduras’ defense mostly in sets one and three. Guatemala had the opportunity to use all their players during the match.

Guatemala prevailed with a huge 42-20 margin in spikes, 7-5 in blocks and 4-3 in serves; they committed 21 errors while Honduras added 22.

Middle blocker Andy Leonardo and opposite player Erik Flores were Guatemala’s leading scorers with 14 and 10 points respectively. Honduras was led by outside hitter William Thompson and middle blocker Wilfredo Lopez with 9 points apiece.

On Tuesday, Guatemala (2-0) faces the other unbeaten team in the event, Dominican Republic (2-0) predicting to be a struggle to take the lead of the competition.

Aldo Arias, captain of Guatemala: “Spiking offensively once again worked tonight, we failed less in serves and our blocking was more effective. Guatemala is improving, we’re coming from less to more and tomorrow against Dominican Republic will be difficult and we hope to at our best of capacity to finish with a positive result”.

Reider Lucas, coach of Guatemala: “The strategy was to making complex 1 to work, we knew if this went well everything would go smoothly and that’s why we came out on top. Guatemala’s consistency is due to continuity in this group of players, they all have more than five years playing and practicing, the younger ones in the team are U21 and U23 Central American champions, adding that this year we went to the U21 Continental Championship and U23 Pan American Cup, and all the senior players have remained active”.

Marvin Ulloa, captain of Honduras: “We are definitely unsatisfied with the result. The team hasn’t found their way and we need more group effort. Giving good results will come if we unite as a team”.

Marvin Ulloa, coach of Honduras: “We didn’t come to lose, but we were prepared to lose today; both losses have been to the best teams in the tournament, if we continue on losing it will be hard to recover mentally. Our serves directed to Jeyson was a strategy, all the players in Guatemala receive well, him included, but he’s the less effective, this should have worked the entire match but it didn’t”.