CHITRÉ, Panama, October 12, 2024.- Belize secured its second win at the 20th AFECAVOL U21 Men’s Central American Championship after a five-set victory, 3-2 (25-20, 25-20, 17-25, 25-27, 25-13) over Costa Rica, on Saturday at the Papa Francisco Gymnasium in Chitré, Panama.
Belize improved its record to 2-0, outperforming Costa Rica 58-40 in attacks and 8-6 in serves. This was Costa Rica’s (0-1) first match in the tournament, leading in blocks 18-10 and committing fewer errors (31-41) than Belize.
Kaelen Ingram from Belize led all scorers with 31 points (26 attacks, 3 blocks, 2 aces). Eleazar Mejía also contributed to the win with 21 points (19 attacks, 2 aces).
Dennis Jenher and Johan Cerdas led Costa Rica with 18 and 16 points, respectively. Jeremy Vanega added 11 points. Keylor Rodríguez had a match-high of six blocks among his 9 points.
On day three of the competition, Belize will play against Guatemala and Costa Rica will face Honduras.
Eleazar Mejía, Captain of Belize: “Once again today we were victorious over Costa Rica. We went to a hard battled five sets. Like I said yesterday, it’s a hard tournament so we have got to play hard, if you want to win you have got to play at your best and that’s what we’re doing, me and my teammates. All we have to do is execute and hope for the best”.
Gabriel Ventura, setter and captain of Costa Rica: “We struggled in the first two sets, our serve was off, and we made many errors. In the following sets, we improved our serve and reduced the errors, extending the match to a fifth set, where we missed a couple of key details that cost us the win. I’m proud of the team for tying the match and almost pulling off the victory”.
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