Curacao Blanks St. Vincent and the Grenadines for 7th Place

Colorado Springs, USA September 1, 2012 – Curacao topped St. Vincent and the Grenadines 25-11, 25-16, 25-19 in the 2012 NORCECA Men’s Junior Continental Championship seventh-place match Saturday afternoon at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Curacao was led by Jurcham Meulens with 14 points, while Derrick Alexandre added 13 point in the victory. St. Vincent and the Grenadines was paced by Ijahlon Butler with 10 points followed by Jahmal Small’s seven points.

Curacao out-served St. Vincent and the Grenadines 8-0 in aces, while St. Vincent and the Grenadines managed a 7-6 block advantage.

“Congratulations to St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Curacao captain Raynold Marchena said. “The game today was good for Curacao, but we can play better. But it was a good win.”

“First, congratulations to St. Vincent and the Grenadines for a good match today,” Curacao head coach Paulina Gilbert said. “For me, the tournament was great experience for our team. We will go back and work on getting more players and be better in two years for the next NORCECA tournament. Today was good, but we can play better.”

“I would like to congratulate Curacao for the win – they played better than us today and came out on top,” St. Vincent and the Grenadines head coach Brian Burke said. “My thanks to NORCECA for this exposure and experience for our program. Hopefully we can come back better with more experienced players next time. In today’s match, we got down 8-0 in the first set and had to play from behind. In the second set we improved and actually led for a while. We need to play more consistently at a higher level over a longer period of time. We will work on our consistency and all facets of our come to be able to compete at this level.”

“My congratulations to Curacao,” St. Vincent and the Grenadines captain Ijahlon Butler said. “They played well. Today our problem was consistency. We played well in patches of the game. The main thing in this tournament was to gain experience. We will go home and work on our mistakes and improve.”