Nicaragua U23 Women

Seventh place is not the kind of result that usually gets remembered, but for Nicaragua's under-23 women's side it stands as the best they have managed on court. At the 2024 NORCECA U23 Women's Pan-American Cup in Xalapa, Mexico, the team lost to Cuba and Costa Rica before closing the tournament by beating Suriname 3-0 in the match for seventh, the first tournament run of theirs on record with a result attached to it.

The side sits under the Federación Nicaragüense de Voleibol, founded in Managua in 1980 and affiliated to the FIVB the same year, and it draws its nickname, Las Pinoleras, from the word Nicaraguans use for their own women. Blue and white, the colours of the flag, run through the kit.

Managua gave the team something closer to a home for that cycle than a permanent ground ever could: the 2026 edition of the Pan-American Cup was staged in the city itself, at the Polideportivo Alexis Argüello, a venue that holds around 8,100 for volleyball. Claudia Noguera has led the technical staff through this stretch, working alongside Sergio Vargas.

Playing host changes what seventh place from Xalapa is measured against. Cuba and Costa Rica, the two sides that beat them in 2024, are the ones Nicaragua's players will have watched hardest for on their own floor in Managua.