Seven coaches
The teams participating are Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
Ronny Martinez, coach of hosts Honduras said: “The objective of AFECAVOL is a good one since this category prepares players for the senior selection. We have had a good preparation to try to win the title. Our team is quite young with six athletes under 19, as we bet for future competitions.”
Cesar Salas, coach of Costa Rica, said: “Since this is the first U-23 experience, we have worked on creating a compact group to aim at the main objective, the title. We have players with youth and experience, among them, some already playing in the National Team. We know this will be a competitive tournament.”
Lester Martinez, coach of Nicaragua, outlined: “This is a new experience both for the players and the coaches, some of them have played in minor categories, and this event is a step towards the majors. We are going for the win, let’s see how things develop down the road. We are going to give our best to attain the goal.”
Nery Henriquez, coach of El Salvador, commented: “This tournament is so important for the youngsters of this age-category who are about to take the next step to the majors. Our height average is 1.90. We want to attain better results for our country. We are in a strong pool, but anyway we will battle for the title.”
Alvinzi Pelaez, coach of Guatemala, said: “I see a very good process for this age, since it is the culmination of the work with the juniors and the youth and the prologue for the Majors, giving the athlete the continuous playing chance. Due to the fact we have won the last 4 junior tournaments, we have the condition as favorites. Most of our players come from the last title, and our goal is to qualify to the Pan American Cup.”
Derrick Morgan, coach of Belize: “The tournament is going to be very evened. We have all the seven countries of the zone and I can see our rivals are bringing players from the U-19 last year. They will put a good show on the court. We have been training together for several weeks and the boys are bringing great expectations of having a good performance. Our main weapon is the collective work, we don’t have individual stars.”
Eric Lucero, coach of Panama, concluded: “The idea of this category is a very good one, since it helps to keep active players who are not U-21 anymore but are not able to take the next step to the majors yet. It helps to form our national selections that represent us in the top categories. Our goal is to win the gold and establish this team as the base for the National Major Team of Panama.”
