Nigel Si­mon

To­ba­go-born trio Shon­telle Year­wood, Asia Joseph and Kerdisha Suther­land all at­tached to the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T have been named in a 12-mem­ber T&T women's se­nior vol­ley­ball team due to de­part to­mor­row to con­test NORCE­CA Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship Olympic Qual­i­fiers in Mi­choa­can, Mex­i­co from Sun­day to Oc­to­ber 3.

The team which will be led by new­ly ap­point­ed cap­tain Renele Forde al­so in­clud­ed three oth­er new­com­ers in Han­nah Floyd, Re­janne Wal­lace and Sh­er­nice De Four.

The reg­u­lars in the team and who a lot will re­ly on are cap­tain Forde, who makes her re­turn af­ter a lengthy in­jury lay­off, over­seas-based quar­tet Sinead Jack (Rus­sia), Chan­non Thomp­son (Turkey), Dar­lene Ramdin (Hun­gary) and for­mer cap­tain and ace spik­er Krys­tle Es­delle.

The trio of Jack, Thomp­son and Ramdin will link up with the team in Mex­i­co, while Es­delle who last played in Ro­ma­nia has been in train­ing with the team for some time at home hav­ing de­clined an over­seas deal this sea­son.

Among the no­table ab­sen­tees are for­mer cap­tain Kel­ly-Anne Billingy, Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford, and Jali­cia Ross-Ky­dd, all of whom have tak­en a break from the sport.

At the eight-team event, T&T which placed sixth last time out af­ter los­ing to Mex­i­co in the fifth placed play­off, will com­pete in Pool B with the host, Puer­to Ri­co and Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, who are the two-time reign­ing sil­ver medal win­ners and 2009 cham­pi­on.

Sev­en-time cham­pi­ons USA (1981, 1983, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2011, 2013) head Pool A which al­so fea­tures Cos­ta Ri­ca, Cu­ba and Cana­da.

Team USA has won five of the last sev­en edi­tions and reached the podi­um in 21 of the 23 edi­tions since the tour­na­ment be­gan in 1969.

The lo­cal women's team which will be coached by for­mer two-time Cuban Olympic women's vol­ley­ball win­ning gold medal play­er Idalmis Gato is due to de­part to­mor­row and held an­oth­er train­ing ses­sion at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo, on Mon­day.

How­ev­er, pri­or to the train­ing ses­sion, T&T Vol­ley­ball pres­i­dent, Daymi­an Stew­art and cap­tain Forde paid a cour­tesy call on the Min­istry of Sports, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Gillian Mac In­tyre to fi­nalise the re­lease of funds to as­sist the team in get­ting to the tour­na­ment.

Speak­ing, fol­low­ing the meet­ing at Min­istry of Sports Of­fice, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, Stew­art said he was very hope­ful that the Min­istry now un­der the lead­er­ship of Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith would come through for the women as well as the men's team, both reign­ing Caribbean cham­pi­ons, af­ter cap­tur­ing the ti­tles on home soil last year.

Stew­art said, "We at the T&TVF man­aged to raise $180,000, but we still re­quire a fur­ther $400,000 to cov­er the trav­el ex­pens­es of both teams.

"The T&TVF planned for these events in the new fi­nan­cial year start­ing Oc­to­ber 1, but the Con­ti­nen­tal body (NORCE­CA) con­firmed that the women's event would take place from Sep­tem­ber 25-Oc­to­ber 3 while the men run from Oc­to­ber 3-11.

"This tour­na­ment which is the first step in Olympic qual­i­fy­ing fell in a very rough pe­ri­od as T&T is now com­ing off gen­er­al elec­tions and some trans­for­ma­tion is tak­ing place and one would ex­pect some pres­sures."

De­spite the chal­lenges fi­nan­cial­ly, the long serv­ing vol­ley­ball of­fi­cial said he re­mained con­fi­dent that the team can rep­re­sent T&T and the Caribbean cred­itably.

"It's a very tough tour­na­ment where all the top teams in NORCE­CA and the win­ner of this event is ex­pect­ed to be a ma­jor con­tender for the gold medal at next year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

"But for us, we are go­ing through some­what of a tran­si­tion phase with a few new play­ers com­ing in­to the team and our lev­el will be mea­sured against Mex­i­co and Cos­ta Ri­ca, who are clos­er to us in the world rank­ings.

With re­gards to the new play­ers, Stew­art not­ed that it will be very crit­i­cal in their de­vel­op­ment.

This will be T&T's fifth ap­pear­ance at the Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship since mak­ing its de­but in 2005 at home with an eighth placed fin­ish. This was fol­lowed by a sixth place show­ing in 2007 (Mex­i­co), eight in Puer­to Ri­co (2009) and sev­enth of nine teams, its best out­ing two years in Caguas, Puer­to Ri­co af­ter out­play­ing Cos­ta Ri­ca, 26-24, 25-21, 25-12.

It will be the third in­ter­na­tion­al out­ing of the year for T&T se­nior women's team as they al­so topped their Sec­ond Round Norce­ca FIVB Women's World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fiers at St Au­gus­tine in May and will re­sume their quest for a spot in Italy next year.

More In­fo

T&T women's team: Krys­tle Es­delle, Chan­non Thomp­son, Sinead Jack, Dar­lene Ramdin, Renele Forde (cap­tain), Han­nah Floyd, Shon­telle Year­wood, Asia Joseph, Kerdisha Suther­land, Afeisha Olton, Re­jeanne Wal­lace, Sh­er­nice De Four.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Idalmis Gato (coach), Fran­cis­co Cruz (as­sis­tant coach/tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor)

Group A:

n Sep­tem­ber 27: Cos­ta Ri­ca vs USA, 1 pm; Cu­ba vs Cana­da, 5 pm

n Sep­tem­ber 28: Cu­ba vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 2 pm; USA vs Cana­da, 6 pm,

n Sep­tem­ber 29: Cana­da vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 2 pm; USA vs Cu­ba, 6 pm

Group B:

n Sep­tem­ber 27: Dom Re­pub­lic vs Puer­to Ri­co, 3 pm; Mex­i­co vs T&T, 8 pm

n Sep­tem­ber 28: T&T vs Dom Re­pub­lic, 4 pm; Mex­i­co vs Puer­to Ri­co, 8 pm

n Sep­tem­ber 29: Puer­to Ri­co vs T&T, pm; Mex­i­co vs Dom Re­pub­lic, 8 pm

Quar­ter­fi­nals:

n Sep­tem­ber 30: 2nd B vs 3rd A, 6 pm; 2nd A vs 3rd B, 8 pm

Oc­to­ber 1:

n Clas­si­fi­ca­tion fifth to eighth, 2 pm & 4 pm

n Semi­fi­nals first to fourth, 6 pm & 8 pm

Oc­to­ber 2:

n Sev­enth spot play­off, 2pm

Fifth spot play­off. 4pm

Third, 6pm

Fi­nal, 8pm