Nigel Si­mon

Brazil-based Marc-An­tho­ny Honre reg­is­tered 21 points as T&T se­nior men's vol­ley­ball team bat­tled to a 26-24, 25-17, 28-26 win over Cos­ta Ri­ca in their fi­nal Group B match of the Norce­ca Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onships in Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co, yes­ter­day to ce­ment a quar­ter­fi­nal spot yes­ter­day. Go­ing in­to the match, both T&T and Cos­ta Ri­ca had 0-2 records af­ter loss­es to USA and Cu­ba re­spec­tive­ly.How­ev­er, the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers," helped by Honre and cap­tain Nolan Tash's 15 points and eight and sev­en points from Si­mon Blake and Ryan Stew­art re­spec­tive­ly cruised to the win to stay in the main draw tour­na­ment to­day. Jose Suares had a team high nine points for Cos­ta Ri­caw which end­ed witha 0-3 record.

With the win, T&T ce­ment­ed a quar­ter­fi­nal spot against Mex­i­co to­day from 8pm from which the win­ner will qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals. On Tues­day, T&T suf­fered its sec­ond straight de­feat 25-14, 25-15, 25-13 to Cu­ba. Fer­nan­do Her­nan­dez was Cu­ba's top scor­er with 17 points, six of them were pass­es and for T&T Hon­ore had eight points. In Tues­day's match­es in Group B, USA swept past Cos­ta Ri­ca 25-16, 25-12, 25-9 and Cu­ba pun­ished T&T, 25-14, 25-15, 25-13 while in Group A, Cana­da stomped St Lu­cia 25-18, 25-14, 25-13 and Puer­to Ri­co de­feat­ed Mex­i­co, 27-25, 25-19, 25-17.