Guatemala Men Move into Pool O Final

COLORADO SPRINGS, United States, May 17, 2014 – Guatemala moved one step closer to a FIVB World Championship spot by defeating St. Lucia 25-18, 25-18, 25-19 on Saturday evening at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Guatemala’s Jeyson Nery and Andy Leonardo contributed 12 points in the victory, while Gerardo Gonzalez and Oscar Garcia added 10 points. St. Lucia was paced by Julian Bissette’s 15 points.

Guatemala’s served proved troublesome for St. Lucia as it produced a 9-3 advantage in aces to compliment a 9-5 block advantage.

Guatemala is now 2-1 with 10 pool standings and earned a spot into Sunday’s NORCECA World Championship Pool O gold-medal final match against the favored United States.

Guatemala Head Coach Alvinzi Pelaez: "This morning during practice we worked on our attack tactics. We scouted yesterday's St. Lucia match very well and identified their principle players.  We planned our attacks today in an effort to neutralize St. Lucia's best players. We worked very hard on playing together as a team and having as few service errors as possible so that we could maintain control throughout the game.”

Guatemala Captain Oscar Garcia: "We really want to thank St. Lucia for playing such a good game and we want to thank God for being on our side. Despite losing last night against the USA, we came away with a lot more confidence. We feel really good about the next game.”

 St. Lucia Head Coach Kendall Charlery: “We have a pretty young, inexperienced group of players. The only way to get better is with exposure in tournaments such as this. The World Championship third round is new territory for us. We will hold our heads up. This tournament is giving us things to work on and get better for future tournaments.”

St. Lucia Captain Jason Octave: “We have good fight in this young team. We tend to lose focus on big points. We are neck-and-neck with our opponent until we lose those key points and cannot come back. We need to do better in that stage to extend matches. Tomorrow’s match should be a good match against Haiti. We lost to them earlier in this tournament. I hope our guys can come back, fight hard and have fun.”