Nigel Si­mon

This coun­try's se­nior women's vol­ley­ball team will come up against ei­ther Cos­ta Ri­ca or Pana­ma for sev­enth spot at the 22nd Norce­ca Women's Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship at the Hec­tor So­la Bezares Col­i­se­um in Caguas, Puer­to Ri­co from 4 pm to­day. The 29th world-ranked "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers," reign­ing four-time Caribbean cham­pi­ons, ad­vanced straight to the sev­enth-placed match af­ter they fin­ished as the best third-place team from the three groups of three-team round-robin se­ries. T&T was beat­en in both its Pool B match­es by 29th ranked Cana­da 25-15, 28-30, 25-22, 25-11 while it went un­der to world sec­ond-ranked and five-time tour­na­ment win­ner, USA 25-14, 25-16, 25-11 on Wednes­day to end with a 0-2 record.

De­spite los­ing both its match­es, T&T se­cured a spot for the sev­enth-place play­off be­cause of hav­ing a bet­ter VIS point ra­tio of .757 than Cos­ta Ri­ca (.608) and Pana­ma (.480).

In the main draw, 13-time cham­pi­ons Cu­ba and Puer­to Ri­co booked the two au­to­mat­ic semi­fi­nal places ahead of USA based on the VIS point ra­tio sys­tem af­ter all three teams end­ed with 2-0 records in their re­spec­tive groups. Puer­to Ri­co was first with a VISA point ra­tio of 1.7 fol­lowed by Cu­ba (1.556) and USA, (1.471). On Wednes­day night Cu­ba de­feat­ing an in­jury-dec­i­mat­ed line-up for ti­tle-hold­ers Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic 25-15, 29-27, 25-22 to win Pool C. Puer­to Ri­co won Pool A fol­low­ing a 25-16, 25-18, 28-26 over Mex­i­co led by vet­er­an Au­ry Cruz's 20 points and Sarai Al­varez with 13 points. Mex­i­co's Clau­dia Rios col­lect­ed 13 points in the loss. Yes­ter­day in the quar­ter-fi­nal match­es USA faced Mex­i­co, and Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic bat­tled Cana­da. To­day, fol­low­ing the T&T match against Cos­ta Ri­ca/ Pana­ma win­ner, the two main draw semi­fi­nal will take place. The tour­na­ment will con­clude on Sat­ur­day, with the fifth place, third place and fi­nal match­es.