Nigel Si­mon

T&T se­nior na­tion­al women's vol­ley­ballers Dar­lene Ramdin and De­lana Mitchell left here re­cent­ly to pick up pro­fes­sion­al con­tracts with Finnish Di­vi­sion One club, Piek­sama­ki Vol­ley, for the 2012/2013 sea­son which serves off Sat­ur­day. The two play­ers have signed eight-month deals that in­cludes ba­sic am­meni­ties and perks as hous­ing, trans­porta­tion and salary, bonus­es for in­di­vid­ual awards, in ad­di­tion to top lev­el train­ing. The con­tracts were made pos­si­ble by their agent, Jonathan Scott who works with a JVSE Pro­mo­tions, a vol­ley­ball agency in the USA and brings the num­ber of ac­tive pro­fes­sion­al vol­ley­ballers from T&T to sev­en, six of whom are women and two con­tracts pend­ings. Pri­or to de­part­ing for Fin­land, Ramdin, who has come up through the ranks of the na­tion­al youth team from the age of 14 be­fore mak­ing her se­nior team de­but at 15, was part of the na­tion­al women's team which topped its Norce­ca 2014 FIVB World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fy­ing Pool A?group in Suri­name play­ing un­beat­en against the host coun­try as well as Ba­hamas and Guade­loupe..

Ramdin, a for­mer St John's Uni­ver­si­ty cap­tain was al­so part of the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" squad which cap­tured a fourth straight se­nior Caribbean Women's Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­onship ti­tle in St Croix, US Vir­gin Is­lands in Ju­ly af­ter par­tic­i­pat­ing in both the Women's Lon­don Olympic Games Con­ti­nen­tal Qual­i­fiers in Mex­i­co as well as the Pan Amer­i­can Cup, al­so in Mex­i­co. Dur­ing her fi­nal year at St John's Uni­ver­si­ty, she was named to the All-Big East Con­fer­ence Sec­ond Team for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive sea­son, and was a Lowe's Se­nior Class award fi­nal­ist and the fo­cal point of the Red Storm at­tack. She eclipsed the 300-kill mark for the sec­ond time of her ca­reer, fin­ish­ing the cam­paign with 355 to­tal kills for a team-high 3.05 kills per set av­er­age. Over­all she fin­ished her out­stand­ing ca­reer at St John's ranked sixth in all-time kills (1,234) and third in all-time blocks (392). Look­ing ahead to her first pro­fes­sion­al sea­son, Ramdin said she hopes to be­come stronger both men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly and there­fore strength­en her per­son­al game. She said, "I firm­ly be­lieve that there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment so I hope to en­hance my skill each day. I await a win­ning record at the end of the sea­son and as­pire to make a pos­i­tive name for my­self so that I would be able to grasp big­ger and bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties in the world of a pro­fes­sion­al vol­ley­baller. "Last­ly, I hope to make my fam­i­ly and friends at home proud, the vol­ley­ball fed­er­a­tion, my coach­es from home, and my col­lege coach­es and the teams I play for and have played for proud. Most of all, I hope to make my­self proud.

With re­gards to se­cur­ing her first pro­fes­sion­al con­tract, an elat­ed Mitchell said she felt ho­n­oured to have her tal­ent iden­ti­fied and the ef­forts made by the Finnish club or her to be part of its team. Mitchell, an out­side hit­ter says she con­sid­ers her­self a late bloomer in the sport hav­ing on­ly gained se­lec­tion on the na­tion­al se­nior team in 2008 at the age of 20. How­ev­er, since then she has been a per­ma­nent fix­ture with the team. She last played for the se­nior team at the Norce­ca Women's Lon­don Olympic Games Con­ti­nen­tal Qual­i­fiers in Mex­i­co as well as the Pan Amer­i­can Cup, al­so in Mex­i­co ear­li­er this year be­fore miss­ing the Caribbean Cham­pi­onship due to ill­ness. Com­ment­ing on the sign­ing of the con­tracts by the na­tion­al women's team duo, T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Daymi­an Stew­art said the lo­cal fed­er­a­tion was very proud of the ex­pan­sion of their "pro­fes­sion­al play­er port­fo­lio" as more of the na­tion­al play­ers con­tin­ue to at­tract con­tracts around the world earn­ing a liv­ing from vol­ley­ball. Stew­art al­so not­ed that fel­low na­tion­al women's team play­ers Rheeza Grant and cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle are ex­pect­ed to leave to pick up con­tracts with AZS Bi­a­lystok of Poland, the club of their na­tion­al team­mates, Chan­non Thomp­son and Sinead Jack. Es­delle, who is the reign­ing Caribbean women's "Most Valu­able Play­er" award win­ner pre­vi­ous­ly en­joyed suc­cess­ful club stints in In­done­sia, France and Ger­many pri­or to sign­ing with Bi­a­lystok. Ne­go­ti­a­tions with Pe­ru's De­porti­vo Gem­in­is, are al­so on­go­ing for na­tion­al duo Shurvette Beck­les and Kel­ly-Ann Billingy, a for­mer Puer­to Ri­co and France-based pro­fes­sion­al. Among the na­tion­al men's team, Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore of Por­tugese Cup hold­ers SL Ben­fi­ca is the lone pro­fes­sion­al play­er.