Costa Rica dominates Belize

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, November 13, 2013. -Costa Rica dominated Belize in four sets 25-19, 22-25, 25-14, 25-20 at the15th Boy’s U21 Central American Championship.

Belize blocked Costa Rica in many occasions and forced long rallies during the match. Costa Rica held back Belize as much as they could to defend their attacks. Costa Rica has a 2-0 win-loss record and Belize remains winless with 0-2 mark.

Despites Belize’s superior blocking with advantage of 12-8, Costa Rica performed better in digging 32-15 showing a strong defense. The winners held advantage in spikes 37-30.

From Costa Rica Cesar Gomez recorded a match high with 17 points and Meyson Garcia added 15 points to the wining cause. Raluni Bernardez of Belize scored 11 points.

“As we began to enjoy more the match, things began to get better. Our attitude wasn’t as it should have been and we were over confident. Belize has players who are well-built physically and they made things complicated for us” expressed captain Andres Araya.

For Yserri Palacio, his team is building as the tournament develops “each day Belize is getting stronger, our minor mental mistakes need to be less”. 

“Belize played well, they have tall players with higher reach over the net than us and my boys weren’t careful enough in neither blocking nor attacking, performing in advance. The team was able to concentrate better and make the correct decisions in the right moments” indicated coach Mauricio Prado.

Belizian coach Leslie Leon said “we still don’t have consistency and some faults in our execution went to the guy’s head. It was a good fight and we hope to do well tomorrow against Honduras, playing hard”.