Nigel Si­mon

Top lo­cal women's beach vol­ley­ball pair, Ayana Dyette and Nan­cy Joseph sealed a tick­et to the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games sched­uled for Mex­i­co, in No­vem­ber when they won their best-of-two se­ries against El­ki Phillip and Pauline Woodroffe at Saith Park, Ch­agua­nas, Beach Vol­ley­ball Fa­cil­i­ty, on Sun­day.

The tour­na­ment was ex­pect­ed to be a four-team one, but with Ma­li­ka David­son and Chel­si Ward at the Nan­jing Youth Olympic Games in Chi­na, and Ap­phia Glas­gow and La Teisha Joseph ab­sent, the sec­ond-leg of the qual­i­fiers was a two-team af­fair be­tween Dyette and Joseph, and main ri­vals, Phillip and Woodroffe.

And de­spite on­ly play­ing one match, Dyette and Joseph did not have things all their way though as they need­ed to come from a first set deficit to earn their vic­to­ry, 12-21, 21-13, 15-13 to stretch their un­beat­en run to nine tour­na­ments lo­cal­ly for the sea­son.

Last month, Dyette and Joseph took the bold step to­wards earn­ing the lone tick­et to rep­re­sent T&T in the women's com­pe­ti­tion in Mex­i­co when they played un­beat­en in the first of three, four-team round-robin qual­i­fiers at Ch­agua­nas.

The ex­pe­ri­enced duo, who have been T&T's lone women's rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the Norce­ca Beach Vol­ley­ball Cir­cuit this sea­son, out­played FIVB World Un­der-21 Cham­pi­onships par­tic­i­pants Ward and David­son 21-11, 21-17 be­fore pow­er­ing past Phillip and Woodroffe 21-9, 21-13, and Glas­gow and Joseph 21-16, 21-8 to end with a 3-0 record.

Phillip and Woodroffe took sec­ond spot with a 2-1 mark af­ter beat­ing Glas­gow and Joseph 21-10, 21-16, and David­son and Ward 17-21, 21-14, 21-19 while Glas­gow and Joseph de­feat­ed Chel­si Ward and Ma­li­ka David­son 15-21, 21-14, 15-11 for third.

So far this sea­son, Dyette and Joseph were 12th in the fifth leg on the sand courts of Huix­quilu­can, Tolu­ca, Mex­i­co, in June af­ter start­ing off with an 11th-placed fin­ish in the Grand Cay­man, Cay­man Is­lands fol­lowed by 12th in Guatemala City and a best so far of sev­enth, in An­tigua, Guatemala, dur­ing the third leg.

Af­ter miss­ing out on the sixth and sev­enth legs of the tour in North Bay, Cana­da (Ju­ly 9-14) and Va­radero, Cu­ba (Au­gust 20-25), the lo­cal women will re­turn to the tour for the eighth leg in Puer­to Ri­co from Sep­tem­ber 17 - 22.

The re­main­ing legs will then take place in Chu­la, Vista, Cal­i­for­nia, USA, (Oc­to­ber 1-6); Ve­ra Cruz, Mex­i­co, (Oc­to­ber 15-20), Cos­ta Ri­ca, (Oc­to­ber 22-27) and the fi­nal leg for a third straight year, in T&T, Pi­geon Point to be ex­act, from No­vem­ber 12-17.