Honduras opens with victory over Nicaragua

PANAMA CITY, Panama, October 19, 2017 - Honduras team opened with a 3-1 victory (25-20, 21-25, 25-18, 25-17) over defending champion Nicaragua to start the XII Central American U19 Men's Volleyball Championship at José Alberto "Beto" Remón Gym.

The captain of Honduras, Allan Escoto was the best scorer with 11 points, Ubaldo Palma had 10 and Jorge Santos added seven. For Nicaragua, Marcial Sandoval scored 16 points, Rony Cerda ha 14 and Josué Cano 10.

Honduras took advantage of their opponents' mistakes (56 for only 26) to take the lead, as they were outscored in attacks (28 to 42), in services (6 to 8) and led in blocks 6 to 4.

Alejandro Castillo, Coach of Honduras: "We have a lot of happiness, it is important to start with a win, more if it is the defending champion, but we take it with great humility and we have to continue working, since we just have started. These guys lack more international exposure, that's why we lost a set, but in the end we managed to get the triumph, because we have always shown toughness."

Allan Escoto, Captain of Honduras: "This will help us because we continue with the euphoria of winning more matches and we will try to do as we play today. After losing the second set we realized that we were superior and we could not to let down for losing a set, we had more time to recover and so we did."

Osman Hernandez, coach of Nicaragua: "The players who are more experienced failed and the emotional stability of the others led us to defeat. For moments we took the lead, but we could never close the game. Hopefully for tomorrow we concentrate more, the tournament is starting and we hope to improve."

Rony Cerda, captain of Nicaragua: "We need to be more courageous tomorrow whem the game is stronger. We have Guatemala and Costa Rica, which will be demanding, but we have to play with everything. I became very confused, I hoped to give more, to improve. "