Costa Rica beat Nicaragua and will play fifth place

Tegucigalpa, Honduras. August 31, 2018. Costa Rica won 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, 25-12) to Nicaragua and will play tomorrow for the fifth place of the NORCECA U18 Women's Continental Championship, against the winner of the game between Honduras and Barbados.

Mary Alfaro with 13 and Nicole Mata with 10, were the best scorers in Costa Rica, for Nicaragua, captain María Belén Arcia was left with nine.

Alfaro achieved nine aces, of the 11 of his team, which was superior in attack (30-16) and in serves (11-5), but they were behind in blocking (5-6), taking advantage of 29 points for errors of their opponent for 21 of them committed.

Mary Alfaro, player from Costa Rica: "We have been striving for several months to get here, to this goal. We were in a very strong group and until now we were able to do our type of game and we took advantage of it. I feel that we were very sure of ourselves, we had a lot of confidence, we united a lot.

"It was a great experience to play against teams like Cuba, Dominican Republic or Canada, because it teaches us, despite not winning the games, they taught us for a future, not only things on the court, but also outside, that we take that to our country and be able to share with the other players. "

"We are going for the fifth place against Honduras or Barbados, both are great rivals, but we will go with the same mentality, the same confidence."

Maria Belén Arcia, captain of Nicaragua: "I think the receipt affected us a lot, we were not effective in the attack, as we usually are. We trusted a little, after doing a good game yesterday, today we are confident and we were also nervous”.

"Their service hurt us a lot. It seems that we had some fear, I do not know why we came from playing against stronger countries".