Nigel Si­mon

T&T 'Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers' will com­pete in the play­offs for sev­enth to eight spot af­ter go­ing un­der to USA, 14-25, 16-25, 11-25 in their fi­nal Pool B match at the 22nd Norce­ca Women's Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship. This was in their fi­nal pool match at Hec­tor So­la Bezares Col­i­se­um in Caguas, Puer­to Ri­co, yes­ter­day. Go­ing in­to the en­counter against five-time cham­pi­ons and world sec­ond ranked USA, T&T need­ed a win to have any chance of a quar­ter­fi­nal spot af­ter los­ing to Cana­da in four sets on Mon­day. How­ev­er, the Amer­i­cans had too much fire­pow­er and aid­ed by the 27 er­rors com­mit­ed by the 29th ranked T&T, they cruised to its win.

Des­ti­nee Hook­er led USA with ten points, Jor­dan Lar­son got nine while Megan Hodge and Foluke Ak­in­rade­wo added six points each, For T&T which will next be in ac­tion to­mor­row, France-based cap­tain, Krys­tle Es­delle top­scored with 12 points, vice-cap­tain Kel­ly-Anne Billingy got eight, and Poland-based Chan­non Thomp­son and Rheeza Grant, six apiece. On Tues­day, USA won its open­er, 25-19, 25-19, 25-23 over Cana­da led by Hook­er's 18 points; Cu­ba swept past Pana­ma 25-13, 25-15-25-7 in Pool C and in Pool A, Mex­i­co be­gan with a 25-21, 21-25, 25-11, 25-17 vic­to­ry over Cos­ta Ri­ca.

In yes­ter­day's re­main­ing round-robin match­es, Mex­i­co bat­tled Puer­to Ri­co in Pool A and Cu­ba and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic faced off for top spot in Group C. To­day, the two worst third place group fin­ish­ers in Pana­ma and Cos­ta Ri­ca will meet in the sev­enth to ninth play-off fol­lowed by the quar­ter­fi­nals. To­mor­row, T&T will meet the win­ner of the Pana­ma/Cos­ta Ri­ca clash ahead of the main draw semi­fi­nals while the fifth place; third place and gold medal match­es are card­ed for Sat­ur­day. The win­ner of the tour­na­ment will earn a tick­et to the FIVB World Cup in Japan next No­vem­ber.