Nigel Si­mon

T&T's un­beat­en run at the Ninth an­nu­al Women's Vol­ley­ball Pan Amer­i­can Cup came to an abrupt end in Group B when it was pep­pered in straight sets by for­mer cham­pi­on, USA on Sun­day night. Af­ter se­cur­ing its first ever vic­to­ries at the tour­na­ment in four years of par­tic­i­pa­tion in their first two match­es, against host Mex­i­co and Cos­ta Ri­ca, the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" proved no match for the Amer­i­cans who tri­umphed 25-17, 25-9, 25-11 at the Re­form Gym­na­si­um, Rosar­i­to, Ba­ja, Cal­i­for­nia, Mex­i­co.

Jor­dan Lar­son paced USA with ten points while Cyn­thia Bar­boza, Heather Bown and Christa Har­mot­to chipped in nine, eight and sev­en points re­spec­tive­ly to car­ry their team to a per­fect 3-0 record.

For T&T, Kel­ly-Anne Billingy scored a match-high 12 points which in­clud­ed two serve aces; cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle added eight, in­clud­ing two blocks and Sinead Jack, three. In the open­ing set, USA came out fir­ing and so did the Caribbean cham­pi­ons, T&T, who got points of serve aces, spikes and blocks from Kel­ly-Anne Billingy and cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle while get­ting good sup­port from Libero Court­nee Mae Clif­ford–who end­ed with six digs. The sec­ond set saw a more ag­gres­sive ap­proach from USA as it used its pow­er­ful serves and mid­dle hit­ters to de­mol­ish T&T team in 17 min­utes.

The third and fi­nal set saw the Krys­tle Es­delle led team show­ing true Caribbean fight when they went toe to toe with Nan­cy Met­calf, Jor­dan Lar­son and Cyn­thia Bar­boza by block­ing and dig­ging their pow­er­ful spikes while Clif­ford con­tin­ued to demon­strate why she is T&T's lead­ing Libero play­er as she de­fend­ed and re­ceived the pow­er­ful jump serves of Lar­son to as­sist her team-mates in hav­ing sev­er­al ral­lies in the game. But in the end, the at­tack of team USA proved too pow­er­ful for the the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" who went un­der 25-11 in the third set. The de­feat left T&T with a 2-1 record, the same as Pe­ru who downed Puer­to Ri­co (1-2), 25-21, 25-22, 25-14.

Speak­ing af­ter the match, USA cap­tain Met­calf stat­ed her team had no choice but to come out fir­ing as the T&T team "was com­ing up and they could not give any op­por­tu­ni­ty." "We did not ex­pect to walk over T&T as we knew we had to fight for our points," added Met­calf.

Com­ment­ing on her team's first de­feat, Es­delle said, "We fought from the be­gin­ning with no fear." "We start­ed very well in the first set, but af­ter that I don't know what re­al­ly hap­pened to us," she end­ed. Last night, the T&T women were sched­uled to meet Pe­ru ahead of their fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary round match to­day against Puer­to Ri­co from 9 pm. The Pan Amer­i­can Cup is a qual­i­fy­ing event in­to the 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix with the top three teams from Norce­ca and top South Amer­i­can na­tion earn­ing berths in­to the 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix.

Group A:

Cu­ba bt Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic: 31-29, 23-25, 25-19, 25-23, 15-12

Ar­genti­na bt Brazil: 25-13, 25-15, 25-22

Group B:

Mex­i­co bt Cos­ta Ri­ca: 25-17, 15-25, 25-14, 25-14

Pe­ru bt Puer­to Ri­oc: 25-21, 25-22, 25-14

USA bt T&T: 25-17, 25-9, 25-11