H.R.C.U. Celebrates U-21 Female Volleyball Team

Today, members of Belize’s national under-twenty-one female volleyball team and coaching staff were celebrated by the Holy Redeemer Credit Union Limited for their stellar performance in the nineteenth Central American Volleyball Championship. Team Belize captured the silver medals, having lost only to Guatemala on the final night, but winning many individual achievement awards during the tournament. During the event last week, the Belize City Civic Center was packed with fans and today was similarly a proud moment for the team.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Holy Redeemer Credit Union Limited hosted the members and coaching staff of the Belize national U-21 female volleyball team inside its Jane Usher Building today. With many within the leadership of the credit union having played on national volleyball teams in their younger years, the credit union felt that the young ladies should be honored for their extraordinary effort during the Central American Volleyball Championship.

Clement Usher

Clement Usher, Chief Finance Officer, Holy Redeemer Credit Union

“We internationalized Belizean volleyball. At those games, we learnt from our counterparts that investing in your young people would reap benefits in years to come.”

Sofia Solano

Sofia Solano, Captain, Team Belize

“This silver medal means a lot to us. We worked incredibly hard, put in a lot of hours, a lot of time and investment training for this medal. And I just want to say how proud I am of my team, how proud I am of you guys and our performance. We did amazing.”

Lupita Quan

Lupita Quan, Coach, Team Belize

“I know some of us are still heartbroken from the last game lost, but I want the team to understand that the expectations of gold only happened because of the incredible performance you put out there the previous three games. You were almost perfect; you didn’t drop a single set over three games; that’s very difficult at that level. But not only that, we are relatively young team. A number of us have never played, even in a local tournament and you still went out there and you were able to put on a performance of a lifetime.”

The credit union handed over to the fourteen female athletes a travel bag with Belizean flag and a monetary gift for a job well done.

Henry Charles Usher

Henry Charles Usher, Legal Counsel, Holy Redeemer Credit Union

“We could see the team work even in the fifth set, we saw smiles on your faces. We know it was hard and difficult, but we saw the smiles and we saw that you guys were still digging deep and trying hard. Despite my current role, volleyball has been a significant part of my life – I played, I coached, I took team Belize to different parts of Central America. We didn’t come back with the silver, we came back with good experiences, but it was great to be a part of those teams back then and to see where volleyball has grown to today.”

The team was overwhelmed with gratitude and stood proud because they have done well for Belize in volleyball. But as we found out, the preparation continues as the U-21 female national volleyball team heads to Honduras next week Tuesday for another tournament.

Avianca Avila

Avianca Avila, Team Belize

“We put in countless hours, late nights trying to prepare for this tournament. There was a lot of pressure because we were playing in our home country and everybody, all the fans would be here and to be able to come in second, to place, it is a very good feeling because you feel amazing that the work paid off. I’m going with the team to Honduras and the strategy is just to have fun, try our best, work hard.”

Marci Mejia

Marci Mejia, Team Belize

“When we are all beating ourselves up about it, I am reminding my teammates that throughout the rest of the games, we have to think about everything that we’ve pushed through and all the successes that we have accomplished and not only think about the last game. We have to think about everything that we did good instead of the negativity because we really did push hard.”

Reporter

“What about the next round for Honduras?”

Marci Mejia

“So we are definitely going to be working on service, passing – all the things that we’ve seen was the problem in this competition and we are going to keep our mindset high so that we can do better.”

Sofia Solano

“We wanted to thank the fans that came out to the civic because that was incredible to see. It was like the nation was united. We were able to see the civic packed full of fans and as players that’s incredible for us to see and hear your voices and to feel the passion of our country and our people supporting us in sports and women sports especially.”

Duane Moody for News Five.