T&T’s Dayne Stewart and Joshua Persaud will need to win its fifth to eighth place semifinal on Sunday to stay alive towards Pan American Junior Games qualification when the NORCECA Beach Volleyball Qualifier to the Junior Pan American Games at Punta Cana Beach in the Dominican Republic concludes on Sunday.
This after the local duo qualified as the best third-placed team despite losing both their round-robin matches in Pool A.
On Friday when the 11-team competition served off USA-based Stewart, who has represented T&T on the world stage at the Commonwealth Games and FIVB World Beach Championship, and Persaud were swept aside by Puerto Ricans William Rivera and Randall Santiago 9-21, 10-21 in 31 minutes while the latter also battled past Nicaraguans Carlos Solis and Denis Lopez, 21-19, 21-17.
And in their second match on Saturday, the T&T duo fell to the Nicaraguans 8-21, 15-21 in 31 minutes to end with a 0-2 record.
However, based on their points co-efficient ratio against the other third-placed teams in the two other groups via head-to-head scoring, Stewart, coming off a stellar indoor collegiate season with Indiana Technical Institute where he won a conference title, and Persaud set up a quarterfinal against Cubans Nolsen Diaz and Luis Reyes.
But the T&T boys losing run continued as they were beaten in straight sets 7-21, 9-21 to drop to the fifth to eighth place playoff against Oscar Martinez and Hayerling De Jesus of Dominican Republic, the losers of their quarterfinal versus Solis and Lopez, 21-19, 19-21, 9-15.
The Cubans started the match as favourites against T&T after they topped Pool B with a 3-0 record with a win over Mexico’s Raymond Stephens and Miguel Sarabia (21-15, 21-16), El Salvadoreans Rolando Avalos and Gabriel Vargas (21-15, 21-13), and Dominican Republic duo, Rayner Sarmiento and Deivy Ramirez, 21-8. 21-10.
Stephens and Sarabia battled Guatemalans Edgar Maldonado and Andre Nuyens 21-14, 21-17 while Rivera and Santiago crushed Criforth Fallas and Daniel Dyner of Cost Rica 21-11, 21-16 in the other quarterfinal to set up their respective semifinals for the top four and fifth to eighth places, respectively
The pairs in both genders are battling for six tickets each available to the inaugural multi-sport event in Cali, Colombia that will take place from November 25 to December 5.
Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico and hosts Dominican Republic registered teams in both genders while St Lucia and T&T are only participating in the men’s event and Canada in the women’s competition. The Dominican Republic is fielding two teams in each tournament.
The event is dedicated to Ernesto Veloz, president of the Hotels Association of Punta Cana, who has been a permanent collaborator to the NORCECA beach volleyball tournaments held in the tourist destination for several years.
