T&T's Stephen Enile and Joel Theodore se­cured their first-ever re­gion­al ti­tle when they won the in­au­gur­al Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Se­nior Beach Vol­ley­ball men's ti­tle at the Rudy Boezen com­plex in Bonaire on Thurs­day night.

In the fi­nal, the T&T men swept Ed­dy Toro Mal­don­a­do and The­lion Jahim Coutin­ho of Aru­ba 2-0 (21-18, 21-16).

Speak­ing af­ter the win an elat­ed Theodore said, "We had an in­ter­est­ing day, we start­ed off a bit slow, which we didn’t an­tic­i­pate. We were able to re­cov­er and we are re­al­ly hap­py for the win. Aru­ba did their best and we tried our best to stay fo­cused and come out with the win."

Enile agreed with his part­ner about their slow start in the tour­na­ment adding, “We played our best in the semi­fi­nals, we came out with a very good win to put us in the fi­nal match; we showed what we came here to do, 'win' and we’re grate­ful for noth­ing more than that."

In the semi­fi­nal, Enil and Theodore had to come from a set down to se­cure their win over Bar­ba­di­ans Em­man­u­al Tur­ney and Do­minic Du­rant 2-1 (16-21, 21-10, 15-11) while Mal­don­a­do and Coutin­ho de­feat­ed Cu­ra­cao's Eth­win­son Luis and Di­manche El­se­vi­jf 2-0 (21-18, 21-18).

In the bronze medal match-up, Tur­ney and Du­rant al­so came from be­hind to earn a 2-1 (15-21, 21-18, 15-13) win over Luis and El­se­vi­jf of Cu­raçao af­ter the scores were locked at 11-11 and 13-13 in the de­cider.

When the tour­na­ment served off in the morn­ing with round-robin pool match­es, Enile and Theodore were beat­en by Luis and El­se­vi­jf in their open­ing Pool B match, 1-2 (20-22,21-17, 12-15) but re­bound­ed to de­feat Em­manuel Mon­tene­gro and Jo­sue Mejía of Bonaire 2-0 (21-6, 21-4) while Luis and El­se­vi­jf al­so beat Mon­tene­gro and Mejia 2-0 (21-4, 21-10).

Tur­ney and Du­rant ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nals as win­ners of Pool A af­ter they had wins over the home team of Luiyi E. Morales Mon­salve and Savyo An­to­nio Ben­jamin 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) and then 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) against Mal­don­a­do and Coutin­ho.

The num­ber one-seed­ed team of the event, Mal­don­a­do and Coutin­ho fin­ished sec­ond in Pool A af­ter beat­ing Mon­salve/Ben­jamin 2-1 (21-11, 17-21, 15-8).

Charles, Richards get bronze in women's com­pe­ti­tion

T&T's As­ma Charles and Kris­tian­na Richards end­ed with the bronze medal in the women's five-team round-robin se­ries af­ter end­ing with a 2-2 win-loss record.

Charles and Richards got off to a dis­mal start with loss­es to Bar­ba­di­ans Dei Pad­more and Ser­e­na Ed­wards 0-2 (13-21, 7-21) and Cu­ra­cao's Lak­isha Hous and Dhyveke Brug­man 1-2 (17-21, 22-20, 8-15).

How­ev­er, the T&T women then re­bound­ed to come out on top against lo­cals, Va­le­ria Morales and Maria Med­i­na 2-1 (17-21, 21-12, 15-11) and Or­lianys Ramir­rez and Maria Fer­nan­da Be­cer­ra 2-0 (21-12, 21-6).

Pad­more and Ed­wards of Bar­ba­dos won the first edi­tion of the women's com­pe­ti­tion when they end­ed with a per­fect 4-0 win-loss mark.

In ad­di­tion to their win over Charles and Richards, the pair of Pad­more and Ed­wards beat Ramir­rez and Be­cer­ra 2-0 (21-13, 21-6); and then went on to dom­i­nate Hous and Brug­man of Cu­ra­cao 2-0 (21-15, 21-9) and Morales and Med­i­na 2-0 (21-12, 21-9).

Hous and Brug­man took sec­ond place with three wins and one loss, with their oth­er wins com­ing against Morales and Med­i­na 2-1 (20-22, 21-10, 15-9), and Ramirez and Be­cer­ra 2-0 (21-4, 21-10).

In the bat­tle to avoid the wood­en spoon be­tween the two home town teams, Morales and Med­i­na won over Ramirez and Be­cer­ra 2-0 (21-11, 21-15)