Costa Rica stops El Salvador in five set thriller

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, November 15, 2013. - Costa Rica prevailed over undefeated El Salvador by 3-2 (19-25, 25-19, 20-25, 25-19, 17-15) at the 15th Boy’s U21 Central American Championship.

Despite Samuel Valdez of El Salvador superb performance scoring 33 points for a tournament high, Costa Rica stopped the hosts’ in their undefeated record. The top scorer for Costa Rica was Cesar Gomez with 25 points.

Costa Rica took advantage of 46 unforced errors of El Salvador while committing 35 of their own.  In blocking and serving both teams had 13 and 2 points respectively, but El Salvador performed better in spikes with 53-45 advantage.

“They had in favor being host, the crowd and their good performance, which we detained with taking care of little details in defense and blocking” indicated captain Andres Araya of Costa Rica.

Samuel Valdez expressed his satisfaction because they played very well and the tie breaker was just to determine a winner, not the best team “we both played to our fullest; I admit I’m a little disappointed because we were undefeated but the fight for finishing first ends until tomorrow”.

Coach Mauricio Prado of Costa Rica said “it was a good match, hard to play because they are the local team and the crowd was inside the game too. My team was able to push hard with serves, which made our blocking more effective”.

“We weren’t able to seal the win and Costa Rica worked very well with their serves. We still have tomorrow and the first place is still in dispute” indicated coach Ricardo Rivera.