Nigel Si­mon

Al­ready with­out the ser­vices of reg­u­lar set­ter Renele Forde, T&T se­nior women vol­ley­ballers will have to make do with the un­avail­abil­i­ty of for­mer cap­tain, Ro­man­ian-based, Krys­tle Es­delle for the 15th Se­nior Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (Ca­zo­va) Cham­pi­onship.The left-hand­ed op­po­site, who turned 30 on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day (Fri­day last) and al­so played pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Ger­many and France de­cid­ed to re­tire from the na­tion­al team af­ter al­most nine years with the se­nior squad, paving the way for Afeisha Olton to be draft­ed in­to the 12-mem­ber squad for the pre­mier Caribbean tour­na­ment which serves off to­mor­row (Mon­day Au­gust 4) un­til Sun­day Au­gust 10 at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, re­cent­ly ap­point­ed head coach Nichol­son Drakes hailed Es­delle's im­pact over the years with the team and not­ed she would be a hard act to fol­low.Drakes, who has been part of the team as an as­sis­tant to for­mer Cuban-born coach Fran­cis­co "Panchee" Cruz' for eight years said the South-born Es­delle was al­ready ex­pect­ed to miss the tour­na­ment as she was ex­pect­ed to un­der­go surgery for an in­jured left shoul­der.The in­jury ham­pered her ef­fec­tive­ness great­ly dur­ing the just con­clud­ed FIVB Women's World Cham­pi­onship Fi­nal Round qual­i­fiers in which T&T fell to Mex­i­co in the de­cider with a spot in Italy up for grabs at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sports and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion­al Cen­tre, St Au­gus­tine.

Two years ago in St Croix, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Es­delle was vot­ed as the Ca­zo­va Cham­pi­onship "Most Valu­able Play­er" af­ter she led T&T to its fifth over­all crown and fourth straight, 25-16, 25-19, 25-12 over Bar­ba­dos.

With re­gards to the void left by Es­delle and the ab­sence of Forde, who is still some two weeks away from re­turn­ing to train­ing from her in­jured leg, Drakes said: "There are one or two play­ers who will have to step up and may be able to do a de­cent enough job as we know we will have to make a few ad­just­ments.He added, "We have two young­sters in Mar­isha Her­bert and Mak­i­la York who I know are ea­ger to get a chance at this lev­el to show their worth while we al­so have the ver­sa­tile and ex­pe­ri­enced Dar­lene Ramdin as an­oth­er op­tion in Es­delle's po­si­tion.Asked the team's state of mind af­ter los­ing out to Mex­i­co with a his­toric spot in Italy as stake, the T&T coach ad­mit­ted that not all the play­ers had got­ten over the dis­ap­point­ment."There are a few play­ers who took the loss more than some, but at the same time Ca­zo­va is an­oth­er tour­na­ment all by it­self and as a team we all have to move for­ward. We can­not dwell on the past, said Drakes.

Drakes, who will be in charge of the team for the first time at Ca­zo­va lev­el will al­so be ea­ger to im­prove on T&T's record of fin­ish­ing sec­ond at home in 2002 af­ter los­ing to Bar­ba­dos in the fi­nal, and third in 1993 as well, with Bar­ba­dos again the win­ners at the Jean Pierre Com­plex,The lo­cal women dubbed the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers", will en­ter the five-team tour­na­ment as the four-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and five-time win­ners over­all, the first be­ing in 1996 in St Croix un­der the lead­er­ship of de­ceased Maria Lera.The last four ti­tles won by T&T were claimed un­der the guid­ance of Cruz, who re­signed last month on the eve of the World qual­i­fiers at UWI SPEC.Al­so in the mix will be six-time cham­pi­on Bar­ba­dos (1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000 & 2002), Ba­hamas, Ja­maica and Suri­name.

The five teams wil com­pete in a round-robin se­ries at the end of which the top two teams will con­test the fi­nal while the third and four placed teams, bat­tle for bronze.Miss­ing out on the women's tour­na­ment for var­i­ous rea­sons are US Vir­gin Is­lands (USVI), the beat­en fi­nal­ist on home soil in 2012, Guade­loupe, Mar­tinique and Haiti.To­day, the lo­cal women's team will hold­ing a train­ing ses­sion from 6 am to 9 am at the tour­na­ment venue ahead of the start of its ti­tle de­fence against ri­vals Bar­ba­dos to­mor­row from 6 pm.The win­ner of the women's com­pe­ti­tion will qual­i­fy to the North, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Vol­ley­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion (Norce­ca) Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onships next year as well as Pan Amer­i­can Cup events.T&T se­nior women's team: Jali­cia Ross-Ky­dd, Chan­non Thomp­son, Kel­ly-Anne Billingy, Sinead Jack, Mar­isha Her­bert, Dar­lene Ramdin, Rheeza Grant (libero), Court­nee-mae Clif­ford, Mak­i­la York, Aisha Sealy-Mor­ri­son, Ab­by Black­man, Afeisha Olton,

DE­TAILS

Tour­na­ment groups:

Women: T&T, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, Suri­name

To­day (Sun­day Au­gust 3rd):

8 am - 11am: Pre­lim­i­nary In­quiry - Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel

6 pm - Wel­come re­cep­tion - Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel

8pm - Tech­ni­cal Meet­ing - Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel

Women's Ca­zo­va fix­tures:

To­mor­row (Mon­day Au­gust 4):

Women: Ja­maica vs Suri­name, 3 pm

Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny, 5pm

Women: T&T vs Bar­ba­dos, 6pm

Tues­day Au­gust 5:

Women: T&T vs Suri­name, 8 pm

Wednes­day Au­gust 6:

Women: Bar­ba­dos vs Ja­maica, 4 pm

Thurs­day Au­gust 7:

Women: Ba­hamas vs Bar­ba­dos, 6pm

Women: T&T vs Ja­maica, 8pm

Fri­day Au­gust 8:

Women: Bar­ba­dos vs Ja­maica, 2 pm

Women: T&T vs Ba­hamas, 8pm

Sat­ur­day Au­gust 9:

Women: Bar­ba­dos vs Ja­maica, 2 pm

Women: Ba­hamas vs Suri­name, 4pm

Sun­day Au­gust 10:

Women: Third place play­off, 12 noon

Women: Fi­nal, 6 pm