T&T end­ed the 22nd Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games, in Ve­r­acruz, Mex­i­co in tenth spot with 11 medals, two gold, one sil­ver and eight bronze from 197 ath­letes.

The medal tal­ly was the small­est re­turn for this coun­try since 1990 in Mex­i­co, when T&T man­aged 13 medals, five sil­ver and eight bronze.

Last time in Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co T&T cap­tured 34 medals, nine gold, 12 sil­ver and 13 bronze for eighth spot on the medal ta­ble while in Colom­bia (2006) T&T won 21 medals (one gold, nine sil­ver and 11 bronze), 2002 in El Sal­vador T&T bagged 17 medals (five gold, one sil­ver and 11 bronze); 1998 in Venezuela, T&T won 14 medals (one gold, eight sil­ver and five bronze) and five years pri­or in Ponce, Puer­to Ri­co, the T&T con­tin­gent picked up 26 medals, three gold, sev­en sil­ver and 16 bronze.

With the 11 medals won in Ve­r­acruz, it moved the red, white and black, to 11th on the over­all ta­ble with a to­tal 209 medals, 41 gold, 75 sil­ver and 93 bronze to be the sec­ond ranked Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean coun­try be­hind Ja­maica's 340 medal haul, 101 gold, 117 sil­ver and 122 bronze.

Re­turn­ing home from Ve­r­acruz with pre­cious gold for T&T were shot put­ter Cleopa­tra Borel in the women's shot put for a sec­ond straight year, and swim­mer George Bovell who won a third straight men's 50m freestyle ti­tle.

The se­nior men's na­tion­al men's hock­ey team got the lone bronze medal af­ter go­ing down to Cu­ba 1-5 in their ti­tle match while bronze came via Do­ri­an Alexan­der (taek­wan­do), Cur­tis Humphreys/Dex­ter St Louis (ta­ble ten­nis), Roger Daniel (shoot­ing), Christo­pher George (ju­do), Kwe­si Browne (cy­cling), Bovell (swim­ming), Michael Alexan­der (box­ing) and the men's sev­ens rug­by team.

Yes­ter­day, on the fi­nal day of com­pe­ti­tion T&T's se­nior men's vol­ley­ball team suf­fered a fifth straight loss, 15-25, 21-25, 13-25 in their sev­enth place bat­tle with Colom­bia at the Cor­do­ba Are­na.

The Colom­bians al­so swept past T&T 10-25, 23-25, 13-25 when both teams met in round-robin Pool A play ear­li­er in the week.

In beach vol­ley­ball, Nan­cy Joseph and Ayan­na Dyette end­ed ins eventh spot af­ter bat­tling past Sts Kitts/Nevis duo Bren­da Allen and Shani­cia Dy­er 21-18, 23-21 in 25 mins on Sat­u­day night.

Ear­li­er in the day, Dyette and Joseph were beat­en in their fifth to eight semi­fi­nal play­off against Guatemalans, An­na Ramirez and Bian­ca Re­ci­nos, 19-21, 11-21.

And, in the men's tour­na­ment, T&T's Fa­bi­en Whit­field and Daneil Williams closed out with a 21-19, 21-12 vic­to­ry over Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic's William Sanchez and An­to­nio Castil­lo for 11th.

This fol­lowed a shock 17-21, 21-11, 14-16 loss to Ja­maicans, Ryck Webb-Mc Ken­zie and Christo­pher Wal­ters in their ninth to 12th semi­fi­nal, the same pair they de­feat­ed 21-10, 21-11 in their round-robin pool se­ries ear­li­er in the week.

At the Leyes de Re­for­ma Aquat­ic Cen­tre, the na­tion­al men's wa­ter po­lo team was edged out by Puer­to Ri­co 12-13 for fifth spot af­ter lead­ing 7-6 at the half, af­ter which Puer­to Ri­co scored three straight and nev­er trailed.

For the win­ners, Ar­turo Aponte scored four times while Alan Bago, Rafael Vi­dal, Fran­cis­co Var­gas and Fer­an­n­do Za­ya got two each and Yahveh Co­mas, the oth­er.

On the oth­er­hand, Ryan West led T&T with a hat-trick and Rus­sell Fer­reira and Jake Gillette two each, and the quin­tet of Daniel Al­varez, Daniel Abra­ham, Justin Bod­den, Matthew George and Stan­ley John Lit­tlepage, one apiece.

De­spite the loss, it was a vast im­prove­ment for the T&T boys who were swept aside 9-15 by Puer­to Ri­co in the round-robin phase.

CAC Games Fi­nal Medal Ta­ble

Coun­try Gold Sil­ver Bronze To­tal

Cu­ba 121 65 64 250

Mex­i­co 114 105 110 329

Colom­bia 70 74 78 222

Venezuela 56 78 108 242

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic 18 34 23 75

Puer­to Ri­co 15 23 45 83

Guatemala 15 19 43 77

Ba­hamas 4 3 1 8

El Sal­vador 2 9 12 23

T&T 2 1 8 11?