Guatemala stops El Salvador at AFECAVOL U21

 

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, October 2, 2019.- Guatemala stopped host El Salvador 3-0 (25-18, 25-22, 25-21) on Wednesday night at the AFECAVOL U21 Central American Championship in FESAVOL Gymnasium of San Salvador.

 

Guatemala earned an important straight set win that put them in first place with 2-1 record and 12 ranking points. El Salvador drops to second with same 2-1 record but with 8 points.

 

It was a thrilling duel where Guatemala impressive recovery from a seven-point deficit (4-11) in set two kept the crowd on their toes. The roles switched in set three as El Salvador came from behind (0-5) pushing Guatemala and reaching 9 all but no enough for overtime.

 

Guatemala led 34-31 in kills and limited their errors to 17 while scoring on 28 opponent errors. Both teams finished with 9 points on blocks and 4 aces.

 

Outside hitter Francisco Gamboa and opposite José Rodrigo Carrillo led Guatemala with 13 and 10 points accordingly. Diego Guidos was El Salvador’s top scorer with a match-high of 19 point and Diego Navarro tallied 11 points.

 

On Thursday, Guatemala (2-1) will face Costa Rica (1-1) and El Salvador (2-1) will rest.

 

Daniel Ralón, setter of Guatemala: “My teammates and I were confident of what we could do. We analyzed El Salvador, we knew they had good blocking in the middle and we planned to attack at the ends, the strategy worked. The entire team and coaches are responsible of today’s victory”.

 

Diego Guidos, captain of El Salvador: “We weren’t focused, we committed too many mistakes and we struggled to recover; we lacked decision. Guatemala was disciplined and I want to congratulate them for their good performance. We must learn from this experience and we are still aiming for the gold”.

 

Reider Lucas, Head Coach Guatemala: “The guys were aware of the importance of this game, we could be left out of the battle and this victory motivates us to fight for the championship. Yesterday and today we were able to win five points per match, after a rough start. The team had a positive attitude, they fought strongly, they were really disciplined and they did their job”.

 

Alexander Polanco, Head Coach of El Salvador: “We gave a chance to other players, among them one of the youngest; we had to go back to our usual line-up and we battled a lot. We committed a lot of serving errors and the boys were low, and Guatemala being a great team they had it much easier to come on top, still our blocking worked very well”.