Nigel Si­mon

The all-lo­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) women's team will start de­fence of its Caribbean Vol­ley­ball League ti­tle against Tech­nocrats in the night's fea­ture match when the tour­na­ment serves off at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo to­day. The tour­na­ment, which forms part of the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (T&TVF) 50th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, is be­ing host­ed by the lo­cal body with the sup­port of the Fed­er­a­tion In­ter­na­tion­al Vol­ley­ball (FIVB) and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T. The match-up be­tween UTT and Tech­nocrats serves off at 8 pm while the open­ing women's match, be­tween Glam­or­gan and De­fence Force will start the day's pro­ceed­ings at noon. In the men's com­pe­ti­tion, De­fence Force and Glam­or­gan clash at 2 pm while Tech­nocrats and BIG South East Port-of-Spain face off at 6 pm. Over­all, 25 in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers from nine dif­fer­ent coun­tries will be on show over the next five days at the end of which, the win­ners will col­lect, US$5,000 each. The UTT women's squad led by Ger­many-based na­tion­al cap­tain, Krys­tle Es­delle (Club Schw­er­iner) al­so in­cludes Poland-based duo Sinead Jack (AZS Bi­a­ly­stock) and Chan­non Thomp­son (AZS Bi­a­ly­stock); as well as fel­low na­tion­al play­ers Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford, Rheeza Grant and Shurvette Beck­les. Tech­nocrats, mean­while will be led by France-based na­tion­al spik­er Kel­ly-Anne Billingy and the over­seas trio of Kamille Dwyer (Ja­maica), Cher­ine Richards (Ja­maica) and Jan­ice Va­lies (Suri­name).

Glam­or­gan has been boost­ed by the in­clu­sion of Amer­i­can pair, An­drea Jus­tine Lan­di and Jes­si­ca Yanz along with Chris­tine An­tho­ny (Cu­ra­cao), Le­cia Brown (Ja­maica) and Shari Matthews (Bar­ba­dos) for its bat­tle with new­com­ers, De­fence Force which will fea­ture three for­eign­ers in Pe­ru's high­ly rat­ed Car­la Rue­da Coti­to and Caribbean play­ers, Man­ni­ka Charles (USVI) and Naki­ni Thomp­son (Suri­name). The men's tour­na­ment, which will al­so com­prise of four clubs, is ex­pect­ed to be a much clos­er bat­tle. Glam­or­gan men led by na­tion­al set­ter, Saleem Ali, has been boost­ed by the in­clu­sion of Del­lan Brown (Ja­maica), By­ron Fer­gu­son (Ba­hamas), Ja­maal Fer­gu­son (Ba­hamas), Shedrick Forbes (Ba­hamas) and Se­bas­t­ian Haehn­er (Ger­many) and will be con­sid­ered favourites against the Nolan Tash-skip­pered BIG SE­PoS which al­so has three oth­er T&T na­tion­al play­ers on in ros­ter along with Bar­ba­di­ans, Fa­bi­en Cox and Al­lian Lon­don (Bar­ba­dos) and Ja­maica's Mark Lewis. New­com­er De­fence Force fea­tur­ing a num­ber of play­ers from lo­cal club, To­co Youths Vol­ley­ball Acad­e­my has draft­ed in Ba­hami­an trio Ronal­do Knowles, Tony Si­mon and Prince Wil­son but will start as un­der­dogs against Tech­nocrats which boast of T&T's lone men's pro­fes­sion­al play­er, vol­ley­baller Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore in its ranks along with his na­tion­al team-mates Sean Mor­ri­son, Si­mon Blake, Kevin Nim­rod and Ryan Ma­hadeo. The Ja­maican pair of Ri­car­do Chong and Delford Mor­gan as well as Bar­ba­di­an, Dale Ad­di­son are al­so in the Tech­nocrats line-up, mak­ing it pre-tour­na­ment favourites to walk away with the win­ner's cheque when the cur­tain comes down on the tour­na­ment on Sun­day.

Fix­tures

To­day

Men

Glam­or­gan vs BIG SE­PoS, Noon.

Tech­nocrats vs De­fence Force, 8 pm

Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny - 6 pm

Women

De­fence Force vs Tech­nocrats, 2 pm.

UTT vs Glam­or­gan, 7 pm

To­mor­row

Men

De­fence Force vs Glam­or­gan, 2 pm

Tech­nocrats vs BIG SE­PoS, 6 pm

Women

Glam­or­gan vs De­fence Force, Noon.

UTT vs Tech­nocrats, 8 pm.

Fri­day

Men

BIG SE­PoS vs De­fence Force, Noon

Tech­nocrats vs Glam­or­gan, 8 pm.

Women

Tech­nocrats vs Glam­or­gan, 2 pm.

UTT vs De­fence Force, 6 pm.

Sat­ur­day

Semi­fi­nals, Noon - 8 pm.

Sun­day

Fi­nals & Third place play­offs, Noon - 6 pm.