Nigel Si­mon

The se­nior women's vol­ley­ball trio of Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford, Rheeza Grant and Shurvette Beck­les, all of the star-stud­ded, Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T team left here yes­ter­day to be­gin pro­fes­sion­al con­tracts in Baku, Azer­bai­jan.The trio dubbed the "Three Mus­ke­teers" have all be signed by Loko­mo­tiv Baku, which cam­paigns in the Azer­bai­jan Women's Su­per League.The club is out to im­prove on last year's run­ner-up fin­ish, its best ever and is al­so in­volved in the Women's Chal­lenge Cup where it will re­sume play lat­er this month.

The 21-year-old Clif­ford who plays the Libero po­si­tion (de­fen­sive po­si­tion) has been a mem­ber of the na­tion­al team since mak­ing her ju­nior de­but in 2006 and has picked up no few­er than eight in­di­vid­ual awards at in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments, in­clud­ing the Most Valu­able Play­er ac­co­lade at the 2009 World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fy­ing Group C Tour­na­ment. Grant, 25, who plays three po­si­tions (op­po­site/out­side hit­ter/re­ceiv­er) has been part of the na­tion­al set up al­so since 2006 and was vot­ed the Best Re­ceiv­er and Best Set­ter in help­ing T&T to a fourth ti­tle at last year's Caribbean Cham­pi­onships in Suri­name.

The 21-year-old Beck­les nick­named "Vet­ty" is a new­com­er to the se­nior women's team hav­ing start­ed out at UTT in 2007 af­ter get­ting her first taste for the sport through the Min­istry of Sports Youth Pro­gramme.The sign­ing of over­seas con­tracts by Clif­ford, Grant and Beck­les, now takes the tal­ly of na­tion­al women's play­ers ply­ing their trade in Eu­rope to sev­en.Al­ready over­seas on pro con­tracts are fel­low se­nior women team play­ers in cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle (Schw­er­iner SC - Ger­many), Kell-Ann Billingy (UGSE Nantes Vol­ley - France) and Poland-based duo, 17-year-olds Sinead Jack and Chan­non Thomp­son, both at­tached to AZS Bi­a­lystok.

All ath­letes are ex­pect­ed to re­turn to T&T in May 2012 to pick up na­tion­al du­ties for the next in­ter­na­tion­al sea­son.Ac­cord­ing to se­nior women's team man­ag­er, Su­san Pierre the play­ers have man­aged to ac­quire the lu­cra­tive con­tracts, due to the ef­forts of their some­times very de­mand­ing coach, Fran­cis­co Panchee Cruz who is ful­ly ded­i­cat­ed to his job and the team which he leads as fa­ther, friend, and some­times foe to get the de­sired re­sult.The Cuban-born Cruz has proven him­self to be a great coach and has done the sport of vol­ley­ball yeo­man ser­vice in five short years.He has had to work in less than nor­mal in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards for a na­tion­al team, but he per­se­vered and the hard work is pay­ing off, by the recog­ni­tion and op­por­tu­ni­ties be­ing pre­sent­ed to his charges.