NIGEL SI­MON

T&T’s se­nior women’s vol­ley­ball team mid­dle-block­er Sinead Jack and her Den­so Airy­bees club con­tin­ued their push for a play­off spot in the Japan Women’s Vol­ley­ball Pre­mier League af­ter a straight sets win over Hi­tachi Ri­vale on Sun­day.

With the win, Den­so Airy­bees im­proved to 24 points and an 8-6 record in the East ta­ble, lev­el with NEC Red Rock­ets (7-8), and one be­hind lead­ers Ageo Medics (9-7) while Hi­tachi Ri­vale is fourth with 21 points and an 8-8 record.

Over­all, Hisamit­su which has an im­pres­sive 12-2 record in the West ta­ble for 41 points leads the over­all ta­ble, ten points more than JT Marevlous (10-4) while Toy­ota Queen­seis (10-6) is next with 30 points, five ahead of Toray Ar­rows (9-6) while Okaya­ma Seag­ulls is fifth with 22 points and a 7-8 record.

Airy­bees will next meet Seag­ulls on Sat­ur­day, and a day lat­er, tack­le Hisamit­su.

Over in Turkey in the Women’s Lig Bayan­lar, na­tion­al cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle and her Pur­sak­lar team-mates bat­tled past Sam­sun BSB Anakent 25-23, 25-11, 18-25, 19-25, 15-10 for a fourth win in five match­es to push their record to 14-3 in the 14-team Group B ta­ble and sec­ond with 42 points, five be­hind un­beat­en Ankara PTT (16-0).

Es­delle and her team, safe­ly among the top eight qual­i­fiers to the main draw play­offs re­turn to league play on Sat­ur­day at home to Kazan Belediye, sev­enth on the stand­ings with a 10-7 record and 30 points.

Still in Eu­rope, T&T’s lone pro­fes­sion­al men’s play­er Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore and his SL Ben­fi­ca con­tin­ued their fine form in the Por­tu­gal A-1 Di­vi­sion by whip­ping SC Es­pin­ho, 25-20, 25-23, 25-19.

De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons’ Ben­fi­ca’s win kept it sec­ond on the 14-team ta­ble with an 18-1 record and 54 points, one adrift of Sport­ing, which al­so has an 18-1 record but 55 points.

Fonte Bas­taer­do (13-5) and Vi­to­ria (12-7) oc­cu­py the re­main­ing two semi­fi­nal spots with 39 and 36 points, re­spec­tive­ly.

Yes­ter­day in the Eu­ro­pean Vol­ley­ball (CEV) Chal­lenge Cup, Ben­fi­ca trav­elled to face cur­rent third-ranked Russ­ian Su­per League club, and eight-time na­tion­al cham­pi­ons Be­l­o­go­rye Bel­go­rod at Sports Palace Cos­mos, Bel­go­rod, Rus­sia with the sec­ond-leg card­ed for Feb­ru­ary 13 in Lis­bon.

Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, SL Ben­fi­ca will do bat­tle with Sport­ing on Mon­day in what is ex­pect­ed to be an en­ter­tain­ing top of the ta­ble en­counter.