SANTA ROSA DE COPAN, Honduras, September 13, 2022.- Defending Champion Costa Rica is the only unbeaten team at the XIV Boys’ U19 Central American Championship of AFECAVOL after defeating Honduras 3-0 (25-14, 25-18, 25-20) at the Santa Rosa de Copan Gymnasium.
Costa Rica stands with a perfect 3-0 win-loss record and 15 points. Honduras has 0-3.
Honduras surprised Costa Rica evening the scores on several occasions in the second set and recovered from an eight-point deficit (14-22) in the third.
Costa Rica led 35-24 in the attacking category, 9-2 in blocking and 2-1 in aces, committing 25 unforced errors against 29.
Outside hitter Stanley Grant led Costa Rica with 12 points, joined by middle blocker Jeremy Venega who contributed with 9 points, as well as team captain David Cordoba and middle blocker Keylor Rodriguez with 8 tallies each.
Outside hitters Oscar Pineda and Jonathan Mendoza scored 8 points apiece for Honduras.
On Thursday Costa Rica (3-0) will play against Belize (2-1) and Honduras (0-3) goes against Guatemala (1-2).
Robertocarlo Argüello, head coach of Costa Rica: “The fans motivated Honduras. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy and what we needed was to add points to keep a margin so they couldn’t get too close. The guys sustained well, but it was hard, they were pressured, and we made some adjustments to finish the game. Tomorrow, we have a difficult opponent (Belize), but we have our goal clear, and we will battle for it, we are going with all we have”.
Víctor Manuel Rodas, head coach of Honduras: “We improved in the second set by trying some changes in positions, today Leo Villegas played as opposite to help us with blocking, and it worked. Our best skill has been reception and today it visibly improved, we were able to stabilize our game. I hope this is the beginning of our improvement and we must continue forward”.
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