Under 17 national Basketball team in Costa Rica for COCABA
The Under Seventeen National Basketball team is in Costa Rica for the COCABA Under seventeen Championship Tournament which got underway on Tuesday. In the opening games, Belize walked over Nicaragua by thirty one points and tonight will be going for the win against El Salvador. Today we spoke with Head Coach Fred Garcia via phone who told us that morale is high and he expects that the team will come out on top.
Fred Garcia, Coach, U-17 Team
“We played Nicaragua with which we as a team we basically worked better as a group you know and I think in the end we wore them down. That’s basically what happened nuh inside was better and we played to the advantage nuh.”
Andrea Polanco
“Having won the first game, what’s the morale of the team at this time?”
Fred Garcia
Fred Garcia
“Morale is very high actually whenever you can get a first victory under your belt and by such a large margin morale is too high, is very high sorry. And I think for us right now we’re dealing with trying to just trying to calm, them down before this game. So that’s what we’ve been dealing with but they’re in very good spirits. We have our second game this evening at six o’clock against El Salvador. We’re looking forward to that as well.”
Andrea Polanco
“So any predictions on that game?”
Fred Garcia
“Well I would like for us to come out on top, that’s my prediction. I think we’ll play well and we’ll do the necessary things to finish up and them up nuh.”
Andrea Polanco
“What do you think the guys will need to bring to this game in order to come out on top?”
Fred Garcia
“Well El Salvador definitely plays a type of ball that we will have to definitely execute a little more and so we’ll make the adjustments and if we pass the ball a little quicker more than dribble it I think should be okay.”
The tournament is divided into Group A which includes Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama and Group B which consists of Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The top teams from each group will move on to the semi-final round of which the first and second place teams will qualify for the U17 Centro Basket Championship.
