SAINT LUCE–The T&T "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" coached by long-serv­ing Mac­sood "Mac­ki" Ali will start as favourites for a record sev­enth lien on the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Ju­nior (Un­der-20) Women's Cham­pi­onship crown when the ninth edi­tion serves off to­day.How­ev­er, on to­day's open­ing day of match­es in the five-team com­pe­ti­tion, the six-time win­ners T&T will not be in ac­tion as it has the day off.In­stead, two-time run­ner Bar­ba­dos will serve off the tour­na­ment against 2009 cham­pi­ons Guade­loupe from 5.30 pm fol­lowed by host Mar­tinique, hop­ing to im­prove its best ever show­ing of third spot back in 2003 on home soil fac­ing last year's run­ner-up US Vir­gin Is­lands at the Hall des Sports, Saint Luce.The Nether­lands An­tilles, which has since been dis­band­ed was the on­ly oth­er coun­try to have won the Un­der-20 Women's Cham­pi­onship in 1999.The five par­tic­i­pat­ing will first play a round-robin tour­na­ment from 5pm and 7pm dai­ly at the end of which the top four teams will ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals, with first meet­ing fourth and sec­ond fac­ing third for a right to play the gold medal and bronze medal match­es.

At the end of the tour­na­ment the win­ner will qual­i­fy for the NORCE­CA Con­ti­nen­tal Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onship to be host­ed by the USA lat­er this year.Last year in St Croix, US Vir­gin Is­lands, T&T led by tour­na­ment "Most Valu­able Play­er" Chan­non Thomp­son, won a record sixth crown and fifth in six tour­na­ments.How­ev­er, Thomp­son along with team cap­tain, Saman­tha Prescott and a few oth­ers are no longer part of the team which is now led by new­ly ap­point­ed cap­tain Zahra Collins.De­spite their ab­sence the Ali-coached squad will be hop­ing for a re­peat of its show­ing on the French-speak­ing Is­land in 2003 when it won its sec­ond straight Ju­nior Women's crown and third in four out­ings.Collins, is no stranger to suc­cess as she was part of the T&T Un­der-16 team which al­so lift­ed its CA­ZO­VA di­vi­sion­al ti­tle last year in St Croix and is one of nine mem­bers of ei­ther the Un­der-16 or Un­der-18 team which were vic­to­ri­ous at last year's tour­na­ments, in this cur­rent squad.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, the 16-year-old Collins of lo­cal club Glam­or­gan said the team's ar­rival in Mar­tinique on Fri­day every­thing has been go­ing ac­cord­ing to plan"We were the first over­seas team to ar­rive for the tour­na­ment which al­lowed us the chance to get an ear­ly use of the prac­tice fa­cil­i­ties which was good for us."With re­gards to the team's chances of se­cur­ing a record sev­enth ti­tle at this lev­el, all un­der the guid­ance of coach Ali, Collins said the team was very con­fi­dent of do­ing well even though they had lit­tle knowl­edge on the host and Guade­loupe teams.

"We have seen US Vir­gin Is­lands and Bar­ba­dos be­fore and know what to ex­pect where­as we don't have much in­for­ma­tion on Mar­tinique and Guade­loupe be­cause they did not com­pete at the last edi­tion in USVI and don't know what to ex­pect," she added."De­spite that we have pre­pared very well un­der our coach­es and we have come to this tour­na­ment very con­fi­dent that we can re­tain our ti­tle," end­ed Collins.

Coach Ali echoed the views of Collins say­ing that the con­fi­dence lev­el of the team is very high."They (T&T play­ers" know ex­act­ly what they are here for and it's now all down to stay­ing fo­cus on the job at hand and ex­e­cut­ing our plans, match by match.Ali added, "Like Collins said, we don't know much about the French speak­ing teams but we ex­pect all teams to be very com­pet­i­tive and come hard at us be­cause we are the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons.The T&T coach while ex­press­ing a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ment in that his team had to train with­out the use of a net dur­ing its first ses­sion said they were still mak­ing the best of what they have and prepa­ra­tion has been very good lead­ing up to its first match on Mon­day against the host coun­try from 7pm.

Schd­ed­ule

To­day

Guade­loupe vs Bar­ba­dos, 5.30pm

Mar­tinique vs US Vir­gin Is­lands, 7.30pm

To­mor­row

Guade­loupe vs US Vir­gin Is­lands, 5pm

Mar­tinique vs T&T, 7pm

Tues­day

T&T vs Guade­loupe, 5pm

US Vir­gin Is­lands vs Bar­ba­dos, 7pm

Wednes­day

Bar­ba­dos vs T&T, 5pm

Mar­tinique vs Guade­loupe, 7pm

Thurs­day

T&T vs US Vir­gin Is­lands, 5pm

Mar­tinique vs Bar­ba­dos, 7pm

Fri­day

Semi­fi­nals:

1st vs 4th, 5pm

2nd vs 3rd, 7pm

Sat­ur­day

Third place match, 5.30pm

Gold medal match, 7.30pm