T&T Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers made a los­ing start to the 12th Mo­vis­tar Women's Pan Amer­i­can Vol­ley­ball Cup af­ter go­ing un­der to world top ranked and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons USA in their open­ing match 13-25, 12-25, 13-25, the sec­ond of Pool A at Col­iseo Miguel Grau, Callao, Pe­ru, on Mon­day night. With T&T coach, Cuban-born Fran­cis­co Cruz giv­ing some rest to the key trio of Chan­non Thomp­son, Kel­ly-Anne Billingy and cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle to start the match and each set, it was al­ways go­ing to be a daunt­ing task for the the five-team reign­ing Caribbean cham­pi­ons who were even­tu­al­ly over­pow­ered by the Amer­i­cans, in block­ings (13-4) and ser­vice aces (9-0) in the loss which came in 59 min­utes.

Lau­ren Gibben­mey­er led USA with 11 points, in­clud­ing three blocks, cap­tain Kristin Hilde­brand added ten, Nicole Faw­cett had six aces among her nine points and Rachel Adams had eight points with four blocks.The loss was the first for T&T in in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion since a 25-19, 21-25, 25-15, 20-25, 15-6 de­feat to Cos­ta Ri­ca in ninth placed play­off last Ju­ly 19, at the Pan Am Cup in Tolu­ca, Mex­i­co.Since then, the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" won the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion crown for a fourth straight time in US Vir­gin Is­lands and topped their first and sec­ond round FIVB Women's World Cham­pi­onship 2014 qual­i­fy­ing groups.Speak­ing af­ter the match, Poland-based Es­delle who is one of no few­er than sev­en play­ers with in­jury con­cerns said her team-mates were a lit­tle ner­vous play­ing against a team like USA whose fast rhythm was new for her team."

Cruz added, ""It was not sur­pris­ing for us giv­en the qual­i­ty of USA as ma­jor pow­er­house." "Over­all I am sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance and we gave play­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty to some young play­ers," added Cruz.To­day the 32nd world ranked T&T will close out round-robin play against with 18th ranked Puer­to Ri­co af­ter fac­ing 19th ranked Ar­genti­na last night in its sec­ond match.

In the oth­er Pool A match, Ar­genti­na al­so had a straight-set 25-23, 25-21, 25-15 vic­to­ry over Puer­to Ri­co led by Paula Nizetich with 14 points fol­lowed by Lu­cia Fres­co and Emilce Sosa with 11 and ten re­spec­tive­ly.Jose­fi­na Fer­nan­dez and Na­talia Aispirua con­tributed nine and eight for the win­ners while Lyn­da Morales fin­ished with a team-high nine points for Puer­to Ri­co

In Pool B, four-time cham­pi­ons, Cu­ba, ranked 13th, re­cov­ered from a 0-2 deficit to over­come 22nd ranked Cana­da 21-25, 20-25, 25-21, 25-20, 15-13 and Pe­ru, rat­ed 17th in the world be­gan its par­tic­i­pa­tion beat­ing 26thn ranked Cos­ta Ri­ca 25-19, 25-18, 25-16 in a match of Group B that last­ed 76 min­utes.And in Pool C, two-time win­ner Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic pre­vailed in four sets to de­feat three-time cham­pi­ons and three-time run­ner-up Brazil, 21-25, 25-20, 25-21, 35-33 in a match that last­ed more than two hours while Mex­i­co de­feat­ed Colom­bia 25-18, 25-23, 25-16, both at the "May­or Fer­nan­do An­to­nio Suarez Col­i­se­um, Hua­cho.

To­day's sched­ule:

Group A: Puer­to Ri­co vs T&T, 7 pm; USA vs Ar­genti­na, 9 pm.

Group B: Pe­ru vs Cu­ba, 8 pm; Cana­da vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 10 pm.

Group C: Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic vs Mex­i­co, 7 pm; Brazil vs Colom­bia, 9 pm.