Puerto Rico sweeps Nicaragua in Challenge Cup opener

MAY 17, Edmonton, CANADA:   In the first match of the Women’s Challenge Cup in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Puerto Rico swept Nicaragua 3-0 (25-15, 25-15, 25-11)

Middle blockers Jennifer Quesada and Alba Hernandez both shared the top scoring status for Puerto Rico with eight apiece.  Hellen Traña Lugo scored nine points for the losing side’s effort.  

Both coaches were satisfied with their efforts today.

Head Coach of Puerto Rico, Javier Gaspar: "We established a plan of what we wanted to do, and we executed. Our setters did an excellent job running that plan. I think we needed a match like this to gain some confidence. We have only been training for two weeks leading up to this, so I think we did really well, especially offensively. I think our blocking needs to be better, but we will have tomorrow and Saturday to fine tune that. "

"I really think our setters were fantastic in running the offence today. They really stuck to the plan, and that's very promising. We had a lot of players playing for the first time on the national team, and I think they all did a great job as well."

Daly Santana – Captain of Puerto Rico:  "I think Nicaragua played well, they gave us some challenges. They really challenged our serve. I think for us it was a good match because we really controlled our side. Everything we could control, we did, and we executed our plan really well. This is a good building block for us to start the tournament."

"I think our serving can be better, a lot more consistent. Our communication was a little off too, so I'd like to see that get a little better for the next few games. There are some fantastic teams here this week, so we will have to clean up our game a bit if we hope to continue winning." 

Head Coach of Nicaragua, Rene Quintana: “It was a really good match. We had a lot of trouble coming here because of a lot of situations so I am surprised that they had a lot of good spirit and played the best they can. This is a good opportunity for us to prepare since we don’t have the chance to play against these types of teams of a really high level. This opens our eyes of the level of our team and what we can do. We know that if we have more chances we can have a higher level.

Claudia Noguera – Captain of Nicaragua: “We thought it was a good game for Nicaragua. We did the best we can and in our opinion we played some good defense and we tried to do the best we can at attacking and hitting the ball. Cuba is a really tall team and they have a higher block so we have to play the same as we did with Puerto Rico but we have to switch our game a little bit. It has been a wonderful experience because we’ve showed that we can give a little more than people expect from us.”

A change in the tournament was announced by NORCECA due to the Costa Rican team withdrawing because of travel issues.

The withdrawal means the schedule will now be as follows (Mountain Time):

May 18

NCA vs CUB (16:00)

May 19

CUB vs PUR (16:00)

CAN vs TTO (19:00)

May 20

Bronze match (16:00)

Gold match (19:00)

(bronze and gold medal matches)