NIGEL SI­MON

T&T se­nior women’s came up one win short in their bid to qual­i­fy to this year’s Pan Amer­i­can Games card­ed for Ju­ly 26 to Au­gust 11 in Li­ma, Pe­ru.

This af­ter the “Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" went un­der to host Puer­to Ri­co 16-25, 13-25, 16-25 in their Pan Amer­i­can Games Norce­ca Women’s Fi­nal-Four Qual­i­fy­ing Tour­na­ment de­cider at the Rober­to Clemente Col­i­se­um, San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co, yes­ter­day.

Both Puer­to Ri­co and T&T en­tered the match with per­fect 2-0 records af­ter wins over Nicaragua and Guatemala re­spec­tive­ly. How­ev­er, the host dom­i­nat­ed 37-25 on spikes, 8-0 blocks and 5-3 on ser­vice aces to se­cure the win.

Team cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle top-scored for T&T with 13 points while Chan­non Thomp­son added ten and Deli­cia Pierre, eight in the loss.

Fol­low­ing T&T’s de­but at the FIVB Women’s World Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­onship In Japan, late last year, the long-serv­ing na­tion­al coach, Cuban-born Fran­cis­co “Panchee” Cruz stepped down to pick up an ap­point­ment as an FIVB de­vel­op­ment coach for the Caribbean.

His po­si­tion with the T&T team was tak­en up by his for­mer un­der­study, Nichol­son Drakes, who en­joyed brief stints at the helm of the team in the past mak­ing for a smooth tran­si­tion.

How­ev­er, the team, in Puer­to Ri­co was with­out Japan-based Sinead Jack, Renele Forde, Dar­lene Ramdin, Kel­ly-Ann Billingy and Jali­cia Ross-Ky­dd all miss­ing through var­i­ous rea­sons.

Still in the mix though, were for­mer cap­tain Es­delle along with fel­low key spik­er and Eu­ro­pean-based Thomp­son, Pierre, Afe­sha Olton and Latisha Morain, all mem­bers of the team which made its his­toric de­but at the FIVB World Cham­pi­onship last year.

On Sat­ur­day night, the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" reign­ing eight-time Caribbean cham­pi­ons, in­clu­sive of sev­en straight ti­tles brushed aside Nicaragua 25-16, 25-19, 25-14 to im­prove to a 2-0 record, the same as Puer­to Ri­co which spanked Guatemala 25-8, 25-11, 25-6.

Against, the Nicaraguans, T&T faced some re­sis­tance but in the end, they won 3-0 in 68 min­utes led by the ex­pe­ri­enced duo of Turkey-based duo, Thomp­son and Es­delle, for their sec­ond tri­umph in-a-row.

Thomp­son was the top scor­er for T&T once again with 22 points which com­prised 13 spikes, four blocks and five ser­vice aces while Es­delle tal­lied 20 points, which in­clud­ed 16 kills, three aces and one block.

USA-based Pierre added eight points for T&T which outscored its Cen­tral Amer­i­can ri­val in all as­pects of the match, 33-23 on spikes, 9-5 on blocks and 11-4 on aces. For Nicaragua, Hellen Tranas had 12 points.

The ‘Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers’ al­so com­mit­ted few­er er­rors, 17 to the losers 22 en route to the vic­to­ry.

Com­ment­ing on the win, T&T coach Drakes said his team was a bit in­con­sis­tent.

“The in­con­sis­ten­cy was present in the sec­ond set. I think we have low­ered the in­ten­si­ty a bit and start­ed to have prob­lems in the re­cep­tion and in our de­fence, but we man­aged to sta­bilise for the third set," he said.

Pres­i­dent of NORCE­CA, Cristo­bal Marte Hof­fiz said that if a NORCE­CA team de­cides not to at­tend the Pan Am Games then T&T will be of­fered the spot.

Speak­ing af­ter the match team man­ag­er Aaron Pol­lard said his goal is now fo­cus on Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion and hav­ing a full strength team for that. The team needs sup­port in every as­pect for that to hap­pen es­pe­cial­ly in the med­ical de­part­ment.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic are con­test­ing the in­au­gur­al Women’s Vol­ley­ball Caribbean Se­ries, a three-match se­ries be­tween the na­tion­al teams.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic se­cured the ti­tle with a 25-23, 25-23, 25-19 win on Sat­ur­day night, to add to Fri­day’s 19-25, 25-19, 25-14, 25-16, come-from-be­hind tri­umph ahead of last night’s fi­nal match.

This event will be dis­put­ed every year in ear­ly Jan­u­ary dur­ing the break of the for­eign leagues where the most im­por­tant play­ers of both coun­tries play as re­in­force­ments.

The host coun­try is go­ing to be al­ter­nat­ed which means that in 2020, a Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic city will wel­come both teams.

Tour­na­ment Re­sults:

Sat­ur­day

Puer­to Ri­co bt Guatemala 25-8, 25-11, 25-6

T&T bt Nicaragua 25-16, 25-19, 25-14

Caribbean Se­ries Match Two:

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic bt Puer­to Ri­co 25-23, 25-23, 25-19