Nigel Si­mon

T&T's se­nior men's vol­ley­ball team had to set­tle for sixth spot at the 22nd Norce­ca Men's Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship af­ter los­ing to Mex­i­co in straight sets in their fifth place play­off at the "Pala­cio de los De­portes" in Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co on Sat­ur­day. The Mex­i­cans pre­vailed over Caribbean cham­pi­on T&T, 25-20, 25-12, 25-21 in one hour and 21 min­utes, de­spite the lat­ter hav­ing an ad­van­tage on blocks, 12-5. It was the third match in suc­ces­sion T&T played with­out the ser­vices of Brazil-based mid­dle-block­er and vice-cap­tain Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore, who re­turned home ear­li­er in the week due to per­son­al mat­ters.

Lead­ing the way for Mex­i­co was Ger­ar­do Con­tr­eras with 12 points while Tomas Aguil­era added 11 and for the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" cap­tain Nolan Tash scored ten and Jes­sel Davis, eight. Af­ter the match, Tash ex­pressed "con­grat­u­la­tions to Mex­i­co and said they had a lot of en­er­gy and more in­ten­tions to win than his team. We had no to­geth­er­ness in the match to­day," he added. T&T coach and Tash's broth­er, Gideon Dick­son not­ed, "The Mex­i­cans had proven in the last five years they had im­proved a lot and our team must now go for­ward and seek to be bet­ter."

On Fri­day, T&T had se­cured its place in the fifth place match by beat­ing St Lu­cia, 25-20, 25-21, 25-17 while Mex­i­co strug­gled past Cos­ta Ri­ca 23-25, 22-25, 25-12, 25-15, 15-11. The Cos­ta Ri­cans re­bound­ed to take sev­enth spot via a 25-23, 25-10, 25-18 over St Lu­cia for its first win in the tour­na­ment.

Jef­fry Calderon scored the high­est for the win­ners with 13 points and on the St Lu­cia's side, Ju­lian Bis­stte top­scored with nine points in the ab­sence of in­jured cap­tain Ja­son Oc­tave. In the cham­pi­onship match, Cu­ba de­feat­ed USA 25-23, 29-27, 25-27, 19-25, 15-8, to claim the gold for a record 15th time and booked tick­et to the FIVB World Cup, a qual­i­fi­er to the Lon­don Olympics next year. Wil­fre­do Leon led Cu­ba with 31 points; Fer­nan­do Her­nan­dez added 17, Hen­ry Bell 12 and Is­bel Mesa 10.

For the Amer­i­cans, Methew An­der­son was the best scor­er with 18 points; Clay­ton Stan­ley con­tributed with 16 and David Lee with 13. The win for Cu­ba was al­so sweet re­venge over sev­en-time win­ner USA which had se­cured a 24-26, 25-23, 25-23, 25-17 win in their round-robin group de­cider. Cana­da edged Puer­to Ri­co 25-20, 25-23, 25-14 in the bronze medal match led by Gavin Schmitt's 21 points. Toon­t­je Van Lankvelt chipped in with 14, Fred­er­ic Win­ters with 13 and Steve Brinkman with ten for Cana­da while Vic­tor Rivera had a team high 11 points for the host. It was the sec­ond win for Cana­da over Puer­to Ri­co in the tour­na­ment af­ter a 25-17, 25-20, 25-17 vic­to­ry in their round-robin group de­cider.

Cuban Keibel Gutier­rez was elect­ed the "Most Valu­able Play­er" (MVP) of the cham­pi­onship af­ter tak­ing his team to the vic­to­ry. On Fri­day in the semi­fi­nals, Cu­ba over­came a spir­it­ed Cana­da per­for­mance 23-25, 25-17, 24-26, 25-17, 15-9 and USA stopped Puer­to Ri­co, 25-14, 25-16, 26-24. Gutier­rez was elect­ed the MVP af­ter he col­lect­ed three in­di­vid­ual ti­tles-best libero, best re­ceiv­er and best dig­ger.

Leon of Cu­ba re­ceived the awards for "Best Spik­er" and "Best Scor­er" while team-mate, Her­nan­dez was the best serv­er. From USA, Lee was the best block­er and Cana­da's, Dustin Schnei­der, the best set­ter.

The "Jim Cole­man Award" was won by Cuban Or­lan­do Samuels, as the "Best Coach".