Fa­bi­en Whit­field and Daniel Williams, re­cent sixth-placed fin­ish­ers in the third leg of the North, Cen­tral Amer­i­can, and Caribbean Con­fed­er­a­tion (NORCE­CA) Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour, the Se­cu­ri­ty Cen­tre Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour­na­ment in the Cay­man Is­lands on Sun­day, spear­head a top-qual­i­ty field of en­tries for this week­end’s sec­ond stop on the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF) Trin­ba­go Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour.

The sec­ond stop of the Trin­ba­go Tour will serve off at the Los Iros Beach, Pa­lo Seco, from Sat­ur­day (May 27) un­til Mon­day (May 29) with com­pe­ti­tion in both the Un­der-18 and Open Se­nior Di­vi­sions for both men and women.

The U-18s will com­pete on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day while the Open com­pe­ti­tion takes place on Sun­day and Mon­day.

For the men’s Open, Whit­field and Williams, who won the first stop on the Trin­ba­go Tour on East­er week­end at Mara­cas Bay, North Coast, beat­ing Ka­reem Thomas and Tevin Ed­wards 21-15, 21-15 in the ti­tle match, will come up against the fel­low fi­nal­ists once more, and the ex­pe­ri­enced pair­ings of Joel Theodore and Stephen Enile, USA-based Daynte Stew­art and Mar­lon Phillip, as well as David Thomas and Laquan Dy­er, the youth­ful duo of Nicholas Williams/Mar­ley David­son.

Fol­low­ing their tri­umph at Mara­cas Beach last month, Whit­field and Williams, who have won four medals to­geth­er, a sil­ver and three bronze on the NORCE­CA Tour over the years, placed 13th in the open­ing leg of this year’s con­fed­er­a­tion tour­na­ments in Aguas­calientes, Mex­i­co, which was held from April 20-24, as well as a sev­enth-place fin­ish at the sec­ond leg held in Va­radero, Cu­ba, from May 10-14.

For­mer na­tion­al beach vol­ley­ball cham­pi­ons and team-mates on the NORCE­CA Tou, Ap­phia Glas­gow and La Teisha Joseph, won the Women’s Open at Mara­cas Bay, last month beat­ing Rayquelle Dick­son and Ma­li­ka David­son 21-17, 9-21, 15-7 in the de­cider.

How­ev­er, this time around, the los­ing fi­nal­ists will both be play­ing with dif­fer­ent part­ners with Dick­son, now team­ing up with Alyssa Hutchin­son and David­son com­bin­ing with Shenelle Gor­don among the sev­en teams.

The oth­er reg­is­tered women’s teams in­clude NORCE­CA Tour par­tic­i­pants, Suraya Chase and Phyle­cia Arm­strong, na­tion­al Un­der-21 cham­pi­ons, and two-time Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tour win­ners of 2022, Brit­ney Choon, and Tsyan Selvon, Jodelle Bru­mant, and Ake­da Jhadoo, Adalia Badroe, and Tian­na Mur­ray, as well as As­ma Charles and Danielle Noel, and Kyra Melville and Re­jan Dubois.

The win­ners of both Open Di­vi­sions col­lect­ed a top prize of US$500 each, while the sec­ond-placed teams got US$375 each, the third US$250, the fourth US$125, and the teams placed fifth to eight US$50 each while the U-18s com­pete for tro­phies and medals.

U-18 champs eye re­peat

The pairs of L’fe Roberts and Mee­ka John­son, Jushuan Mor­ri­son and Jahreef Miguel will both be seek­ing their sec­ond straight ti­tles when T&TVF Girls and Boys Un­der-18 In­vi­ta­tion­al Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour­na­ment comes off, hav­ing won the open­ing legs at Mara­cas Bay last month.

In the girls’ de­cider, Roberts and John­son com­plet­ed a per­fect two days of com­pe­ti­tion when they swept Paige Alexan­der and Kris­tian­na Richards 21-13, 21-9 in their fi­nal, and both teams along with T’Shi­ann Mil­lett and Maria Hem­lee, and Ayesha Sealey and Rim­mel Tay­lor will com­prise the four com­pet­ing teams this week­end.

Among the boys’, Mor­ri­son and Miguel, who over­came De­jaun Williams and Jeda­iah San­ior, 21-18, 14-21, 15-12 in their fi­nal last month, are al­so list­ed to com­pete with the run­ners-up, and the pairs of Jadon Mor­ri­son and Dar­i­on Sparks, Jay­lon Et­ti­enne and Je­re­mi­ah Jones, and Josi­ah Jankey and Levi Singh, along with new­com­ers Gi­an­ni Sal­vary and N’kosi Ay­oung.

The lo­cal Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour will then move to Ma­yaro Beach from June 18-19 (Labour Day week­end); and the CA­ZO­VA Tour in To­ba­go from Au­gust 11-13.

The TTVF will al­so host two legs of the NORCE­CA Tour, from Ju­ly 21-23 at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go, which will serve as a test piece for the vol­ley­ball seg­ment of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games at Pi­geon Point, and the eighth of the ten stops on the tour for the sea­son at Mara­cas Beach from Sep­tem­ber 1-3.