Ger­many-based Krys­tle Es­delle was vot­ed as the "Most Valu­able Play­er" of the tour­na­ment af­ter she led the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T from the brink of de­feat to an un­like­ly suc­cess­ful de­fence of their ti­tle with a pul­sat­ing come-from-be­hind five-set win over Glam­or­gan in the Caribbean In­vi­ta­tion­al Vol­ley­ball League women's fi­nal at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo on Sun­day night. Watched by a very packed house at the Mu­cu­rapo venue, Glam­or­gan looked set to avenge a round-robin five-set loss to its bit­ter ri­val, when it took the first two close­ly fought sets, 29-27, 25-23 led by the pow­er of Bar­ba­di­an Shari Matthews, Amer­i­can duo, Jes­si­ca Yanz and An­drea Lan­di as well as Ja­maican Le­cia Brown and and T&T's Jali­cia Ross. It all seemed to be over for UTT when Glam­or­gan took com­mand of the third set as well but led by Poland-based Chan­non Thomp­son, Es­delle, De­lana Mitchell and the block­ing of Sinead Jack, Abi­gail Gloud and Renele Forde, the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons man­aged to get back in­to the con­test by ek­ing out a 25-23 third set win to trail 2-1 in the best-of-five sets match.

Both teams con­tin­ue to trade points in the fourth set ear­ly be­fore Glam­or­gan took charge and climbed to with­in one point of the ti­tle at 24-21, how­ev­er the Mac­sood Ali-coached club wilt­ed un­der the pres­sure with Lan­di be­ing the main cul­prit and even­tu­al­ly sur­ren­dered the set failed UTT at 26-24 to set up a fifth and de­cid­ing set to the de­light of the crowd. Just as the pre­vi­ous four sets, the fifth al­so proved as en­ter­tain­ing with UTT over­com­ing two match points at 14-12 be­fore steal­ing the ti­tle at 17-15 and with it the US$5,000 win­ners' cheque. On the oth­er side of the net, the Glam­or­gan play­ers were ex­pect­ed­ly dis­traught too the point, that libero Rechez Lind­say, who was in­volved in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent ear­li­er in the day but still played in the match was brought to tears, along with team-mate Ross. Lind­say's dis­play dur­ing the tour­na­ment did not go un-no­ticed though as she copped both the "Best Libero" and "Best Dig­ger" awards. On Sat­ur­day night in the semi­fi­nals, UTT swept past De­fence Force 25-15, 25-18, 25-8 while Glam­or­gan stopped Tech­nocrats 25-14, 25-19, 25-12 in the oth­er. Tech­nocrats got some re­demp­tion on Sun­day, as it end­ed third af­ter beat­ing De­fence Force 25-22, 25-17, 25-17.

...Glam­or­gan men out­last Tech­nocrats

Glam­or­gan men were al­so tak­en to five sets by na­tion­al cham­pi­ons Tech­nocrats be­fore se­cur­ing a 26-24, 28-30, 18-25, 31-29, 16-14 in­spired by the ath­leti­cism of Ger­many's Se­bas­t­ian Haehn­er, the men's tour­na­ment "Most Valu­able Play­er" award win­ner and libero Ja­maal Fer­gu­son of Ba­hamas. On Sat­ur­day in the semi­fi­nals, Glam­or­gan bat­tled past De­fence Force 25-23, 22-25, 25-18, 27-25 in the semi­fi­nal while Tech­nocrats showed its na­tion­al cham­pi­onship qual­i­ties when it clawed its way back from two sets down and saved four match points in the fifth set to beat BIG South East Port-of-Spain, 3-2 (18-25, 22-25, 25-19, 25-15, 20-18). SE­PoS over­came the dis­ap­point­ment of its semi­fi­nal let down by sweep­ing past De­fence Force 25-22, 25-13, 25-23 for third.

FI­NAL STAND­INGS

Women

1. UTT

2. Glam­or­gan

3. Tech­nocrats

4. De­fence Force

Men

1. Glam­or­gan

2. Tech­nocrats

3. BIG SE­PoS

4. De­fence Force

In­di­vid­ual awards

Women

Best Scor­er: Krys­tle Es­delle (UTT)

Best Spik­er: Krys­tle Es­delle (UTT)

Best Block­er: Le­cia Brown (Glam­or­gan)

Best Serv­er: An­drea Lan­di (Glam­or­gan)

Best Set­ter: Jes­si­ca Yanz (Glam­or­gan)

Best Re­ceiv­er: An­drea Lan­di (Glam­or­gan)

Best Dig­ger: Rechez Lind­say (Glam­or­gan)

Best Libero: Rechez Lind­say (Glam­or­gan)

Most Valu­able Play­er: Krys­tle Es­delle (UTT)

Men

Best Scor­er: Nolan Tash (BIG SE­PoS)

Best Spik­er: Si­mon Blake (Tech­nocrats)

Best Block­er: Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore (Tech­nocrats)

Best Serv­er: Si­mon Blake (Tech­nocrats)

Best Set­ter: Dale Ad­di­son (Tech­nocrats)

Best Re­ceiv­er: Se­bas­t­ian Haehn­er (Glam­or­gan)

Best Dig­ger: Ja­maal Fer­gu­son (Glam­or­gan)

Best Libero: Ja­maal Fer­gu­son (Glam­or­gan)

Most Valu­able Play­er: Se­bas­t­ian Haehn­er (Glam­or­gan)