The national senior volleyball men will be hoping to end their campaign in the NORCECA's Third Round World Championship Qualification Men Pool Q Qualifiers on a winning note at the Hershey Centre, Mississauga, Greater Ontario, Toronto, when they come up against Panama in the third place battle from 2 pm today.
The match will come less than 24 hours after Panama, the Central Americans champions came from behind to beat the Nolan Tash-captained T&T 26-28, 25-23, 25-20, 25-19 in their final round-robin at the same venue yesterday.
Overall, Domingo Avila had 19 attack points and one block, to lead his team in scoring with 20 points while Portugal-based Marc-Anthony Honore had a solid game for T&T with 20 points, comprising 13 kills and six blocks.
On Saturday night, T&T hopes of qualifying to the FIVB World Championship in Poland later this year was ended after a second loss in as many matches, this time to host Canada 13-25, 11-25, 21-25 after the five-set loss to Costa Rica on Friday.
With the win, Canada joined Costa Rica, which battled past T&T 3-2 on Friday with 2-0 record ahead of their final round meeting last night, a prelude to today's gold medal contest from which the winner will earn the lone ticket to the World Championship.
Having beaten Panama in its opener 3-0, Canadian head coach Glenn Hoag tried a different lineup against T&T with first-time starter Jason DeRocco delivering 17 points to lead Canada while Dallas Soonias, added 15 while Tash and Honore had five points each for T&T.
In the earlier match in the pool, Costa Rica finally got the better of Panama 25-21, 25-20, 23-25, 25-23 led by captain Richard Smith Hall with 24 points. Panama's Edward Diaz contributed 14 points and Domingo Avila 14 to their team's strong effort today.
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