Allan Sharp

The Belize Female Junior Volleyball Team has been in Costa Rica since Friday representing the Jewel at the Central American Female under-eighteen Volleyball Championship. The young team has been fighting against more experienced and older players from the region. According to the President of the Belize Volleyball Association, the first game was against a formidable Costa Rican team.

Allan Sharp, President, Belize Volleyball Association

"They played against Costa Rica which is the host country, ranked number one in quite some years. The girls did well in the beginning of every set. We lost twenty-five - thirteen, twenty-five - nine, twenty-five - twenty-one. When played against Nicaragua, the girls again put a great effort, but I think they were a bit flat from all the emotions from the day before. Yesterday we played the number two ranking team, Guatemala, in which we again lost twenty-five - thirteen, twenty-five - seventeen, twenty-five - something around seventeen again. Today we play against Honduras at six and tomorrow against El Salvador. The game today is the game where we are hoping to have better results. But I want everybody to keep in mind that our team is averaging an age of fifteen point one years old versus the next youngest team with is sixteen point two years old. The teams we are playing are seventeen point plus years old and so forth. So we've taken a very young team to try and get the girls developed. For Belize its young compared to rest of Central America."

Jose Sanchez

"Do you think these girls would be able to move on as they get older to progress and get better?"

Allan Sharp

"Oh sure. I'm very pleased. I have a young lady that's twelve and she is already six feet tall-she is just less than thirteen. She is doing very well. She's played in everyone of the match so far. We have another young lady, fourteen years old, Miss Sherika Byrd. She is ranked number three right in the blocking of the whole tournament. So we have young ladies that are doing very well. Clara Sabal and the young lady Habet are doing very well in carrying the team. They are doing most of the passing, defense-as far as stats show. So I think the young ladies are doing well considering age."

Belize is currently playing against Honduras in a match that began at six p.m. The game can be seen live at www.livestream.com. Sharp says that the team will return to Belize later in the week.

Channel 5