This country's senior men's volleyball team came up against powerhouse Cuba last night for a spot in the semifinal round of the Norceca Men's Continental Olympic Qualifying Tournament at the Mike and Arline Walter Pyramid, Long Beach State University, California, USA at stake. This, after the "Calypso Spikers," ranked sixth in Norceca and 33rd in the world, secured third spot in Pool A, behind defending Olympic champion USA and Mexico with a convincing straight sets win, 25-18, 25-23, 25-19 over Costa Rica in their final round-robin match at the same venue on Wednesday. Both T&T and Costa Rica entered the match with 0-2 records after losses to USA and Mexico in their first two matches, but from early on the Nolan Tash-skippered T&T squad signaled its intention that it was determined to end that streak. Buoyed by its performance in the 1-3 loss to Mexico on Tuesday, Tash and company got off to a quick start and stormed into a 5-0 lead and eventually took the set with relative ease.
The second set was much more of an even affair with both teams trading points before the Calypso Spikers went ahead for good at 20-19 after which a Ryan Stewart spike sealed the set and a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five-set match. The third set saw Costa Rica taking an early lead but T&T managed to draw level at 8-8 after which it never trailed and eventually completed the win to finish third out of the four-teams and secure a place in the main draw quarterfinals, which also kept alive its hopes of claiming the title and the lone available spot to the London Olympics. For T&T which out blocked Costa Rica 11-3, vice-captain and Portugal-based Marc-Anthony Honore led with 17 points, while Tash contributed 13 points and Jessel Davis and Sean Morrison, six points each. Costa Rica was paced by Richard Smith Hall's 11 points. However, both teams gave away many points on errors as T&T had 26, something it needed to reduce to have a chance against the Cubans, and Costa Rica 22. Commenting on the win, its first of the competition Tash said it was a better day in terms of the result for his team, even though it was not their best performance so far. "Going into the match we believed we were the superior team and it was our job to go out on the court and prove it, which we did," said the long serving T&T captain.
In the night's final match host USA, ranked sixth in the world and second in Norceca fought off Mexico's upset bid with a 25-23, 25-19, 25-14 victory to finish 3-0 and first in Pool A which secured an automatic semifinal spot for tonight. USA captain Clay Stanley led the USA with 14 points, while Matt Anderson chipped in 12 points and Reid Priddy 10 points. Mexico's Carlos Guerra produced a team-high 12 points and captain Gerardo Contreras added nine points. In Pool B, Canada, ranked 18th in the world and fourth in Norceca stunned top ranked Norceca team and fifth in the world Cuba 25-21, 25-17, 25-21 to finish 3-0 and with it the other automatic semifinal spot. Gavin Schmitt collected 21 points for Canada and Frederic Winters added 16 points in the victory. Cuba was led by Fernando Hernandez's 13 points, followed by nine points from Rolando Cepeda and Wilfredo Leon. In Wednesday's opening match, Puerto Rico swept past Dominican Republic 25-15, 25-18, 25-16 for its first victory and third in the pool to reach the quarterfinal where it faced Mexico last night.
Puerto Rico had four players reach double figure scoring topped by Ezequiel Cruz Lozada's 13 points, while Juan Figueroa tallied 12 points in the victory. Dominican Republic was led by Elnis Palomino Castillo's nine points. Today, the semifinal matches for fifth to eighth and first to fourth are carded to begin from 4pm (TT time) while tomorrow is the final day of competition. In London, 12 teams will compete in the men's volleyball competition with Great Britain (host), already qualified. Russia, Poland and Brazil have also qualified by virtue of their top three finish at last year's FIVB World Cup in Japan. Tunisia has also qualified as the winner of the African Zone qualifying tournament.
