T&T's under-18 women's volleyballers came up against Guatemala for fifth and sixth spots at the Norceca Women's Under-18 Continental Championship at the Baja California High Performance Centre, Tijuana, Mexico, yesterday. T&T suffered its third straight loss, this time to host Mexico, 6-25, 10-25, 5-25 in the second of two quarterfinal matches on Thursday night. Fernanda Bañuelos scored 15 points, including ten aces, while Carmen Leon finished with 12 and Veronica Garza recorded 10 points for the winners while captain Reann Young scored three points and Zahra Collins, two for T&T which was outblocked 4-0 and dominated on service aces, 20-0. Speaking after the match, Young noted her team faced a tough opponent: "We tried to work on our attack and everything we could against them, but it was not good enough." T&T coach, Macsood Ali noted: "Mexico is a very strong team, we expected a tough match. Tomorrow (yesterday) we will face Guatemala, a very good skilled team. My players were inconsistent but hopefully we can play a good match as we are excited to face them."
With the win, Mexico set up a semifinal meeting with Group B round-robin winner Dominican Republic last night while Puerto Rico faced USA, the Group A winner. In Thursday's other quarterfinal, Puerto Rico defeated Guatemala 25-8, 25-10, 25-18 led by Paola Rojas' 13 points, and 12 from Julymar Otero. Guatemala's captain Estefanie Bethancourth registered seven. On Wednesday night, Dominican Republic swept past Puerto Rico 25-20, 25-21, 25-19 to end with a 2-0 record and secure an automatic semifinal spot from Group B. Brayelin Martinez scored 25 points and Natalia Martinez ten for Dominican Republic and Otero recorded 10 while Genesis Miranda and Paola Rojas scored nine apiece for Puerto Rico. And in Group A, USA blasted Mexico 25-14, 25-12, 25-17 for top spot led by Carli Snyder and Simone Lee who scored 14 points apiece. Mexico's leading scorer was Fernanda Guitron with seven.
