NIGEL SI­MON

T&T's top men and women beach vol­ley­ball du­os, Daneil Williams and Daynte Stew­art, and Rheeza Grant and Ab­by Black­man, will be tar­get­ing ninth spot when the fifth stop of the NORCE­CA Beach Vol­ley­ball Cir­cuit con­cludes at Bo­ca Chi­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, on Sun­day.

In the ninth to 12th semi­fi­nal from 10 am this morn­ing, Williams and Stew­art will come up against Car­los Es­co­bar and David Var­gas while Colom­bians Snei­der Ri­vas and Se­bas­t­ian De­nis bat­tle Cos­ta Ri­cans Bryan Mon­ge and Richard Smith in the oth­er semi­fi­nal.

The win­ners will face off for the ninth spot from 3 pm while the losers meet at 2 pm.

Yes­ter­day when ac­tion re­sumed, with group stage match­es, Williams and Stew­art fell to Cana­da's Sam Ped­low and Sam Schachter 11-21, 12-21 to end as run­ner-up in Pool B with a 1-1 record.

When tour­na­ment served off on Fri­day, Williams and Stew­art swept whipped Ja­maicans Tris­ton Hitch­man and No­ley Fer­gu­son 21-11, 21-10 and Ped­low and Schac­ter de­feat­ed the Ja­maicans, 21-13, 21-11.

With a spot in the quar­ter­fi­nals at stake, Williams and Stew­art went un­der to Mex­i­co's Jo­sue Gax­i­o­la and Jose Luis Ru­bio, 18-21, 9-21 in their round-of-12 play­off.

In Pool F, Joel Theodore and Mar­lon Phillip missed out on ad­vanc­ing to the round-of-12 af­ter los­ing their must-win match with Arubans, Fran­sua An­gela and Dar­vick An­tho­ny, 13-21, 16-21.

On Fri­day, Theodore and Phillip were beat­en by Cubans, En­rique Reyes and Karell Pina, 19-21, 9-21, but re­bound­ed to de­feat El Sal­vadore­ans, Car­los Es­co­bar and David Var­gas, 19-21, 21-16, 15-11.

The Cubans topped the pool with a 3-0 record while T&T, Aru­ba and El Sal­vador all end­ed with 1-1 records. How­ev­er, Es­co­bar and Var­gas ad­vanced based on a bet­ter points dif­fer­ence ra­tio of 122-120, to T&T's 112-132 and Aru­ba's 92-113.

Theodore and Phillip then came up short against US Vir­gin Is­lands' Dil­lon Les­ni­ak and Hy­las Smith, 16-21, 12-21 yes­ter­day in the con­so­la­tion quar­ter­fi­nals and tack­led Ba­hami­ans, Jon Isaacs and Kyle Wil­son for the 17th spot last night.

In the women's com­pe­ti­tion, Grant and Black­man were over­pow­ered by Mex­i­co's Martha Re­vuelta and Zaira Orel­lana, 10-21, 16-21 in their round-of-12 en­counter and will meet Colom­bians, In­grid Lopez and Clau­dia Po­lo in their ninth to 12th semi­fi­nal while Angje­ny To­lenti­no and Chris­tine An­tho­ny of Cu­ra­cao faces St Kitts/Nevis' Shani­cia Dy­er and Bren­da Allen-Ed­in­bor­ough in the oth­er.

On Fri­day, Grant and Black­man en­joyed a straight sets win, 21-11, 21-14 over US Vir­gin Is­lands' Cristi­na Almei­da-Anz and Melanie Va­len­ciana in Pool A be­fore los­ing the pool de­cider with Cana­da's Heather Bans­ley and Brandie Wilk­er­son, 8-21, 6-21.

Bans­ley and Wilk­er­son pow­ered past Almei­da-Anz and Va­len­ciana 21-7, 21-11 in their first match.

The oth­er T&T women's pair of La Teisha Joseph and Suraya Chase came up against El Sal­vadore­ans, Kathya Vasquez and Fer­nan­da Var­gas in the 13th to 15th semi­fi­nal last night while, Na­talia Giron and Es­te­fanie Bethancourt of Guatemala tan­gled with Bian­ca Tor­res and Alexan­dra Rivera of Puer­to Ri­co in the oth­er ahead of to­day's fi­nal match­es.

This af­ter Chase and Joseph were out­played by Re­vuelta and Orel­lana 11-21, 8-21 in their fi­nal Pool F match be­fore a 14-21, 18-21 loss to US Vir­gin Is­lands' Cristi­na Almei­da-Anz and Melanie Va­len­ciana, in their con­so­la­tion quar­ter­fi­nals.

On Fri­day, Chase and Joseph fell to Giron and Bethancourt 10-21, 17-21, and To­lenti­no and An­tho­ny, 12-21, 13-21, in their first two pool match­es.

At stake for all par­tic­i­pat­ing teams rep­re­sent­ing more than 15 coun­tries, is points to­wards qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2019 Pan Amer­i­can Games in Li­ma, Pe­ru.