T&T Un­der-19 men’s vol­ley­ballers stormed in­to the semi­fi­nals of the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s (Ca­zo­va) Un­der-19 Men’s Cham­pi­onships when they reg­is­tered their first ever win over Bar­ba­dos at the GC Fos­ter Col­lege in Span­ish Town, Ja­maica, on Mon­day night. 

Win­ners of their Group B open­er against Cay­man Is­lands 25-18, 25-13, 24-26, 25-20, the Cur­tis Bur­kett-coached ‘Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers’ against three-time tour­na­ment win­ners Bar­ba­dos knew that a win would great­ly en­hance their chances of se­cur­ing the top spot in the three-team pool and an au­to­mat­ic semi­fi­nal spot as group win­ners.

In the end, the T&T men, run­ners-up on home soil to Suri­name two years ago in a two-team se­ries to add to their bronze medals from 2007 and 2017, with­stood the stub­born chal­lenge from the Ba­jans for a 25-22, 24-26, 26-24, 25-22 win.

With the win, T&T com­plet­ed their two-match cam­paign with a 2-0 record and eight points to head to the semi­fi­nals as group win­ners, while Bar­ba­dos re­bound­ed to beat Cay­man Is­lands 25-9, 25-19, 25-19 in the fi­nal pool match yes­ter­day for the sec­ond spot ahead of the cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals for both teams to­day (Wednes­day).

Speak­ing af­ter his team’s win, an elat­ed Bur­kett said his team worked very hard to get the win, and cred­it must go to the en­tire staff as well.

He added, “We were pre­pared for this game against Bar­ba­dos men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly as we want­ed to ac­com­plish what we had not done be­fore as a team, which was beat­ing Bar­ba­dos at this lev­el and win­ning our group.”

Bur­kett said, “Get­ting the win over Bar­ba­dos was re­al­ly spe­cial be­cause they have been a dom­i­nant force over us for as long as I can re­mem­ber, and the out­come of the match was the re­sult of an en­tire team ef­fort.

“We stud­ied them and planned ac­cord­ing­ly, and the play­ers were up to the task and ex­e­cut­ed well,’ stat­ed Bur­kett.

Look­ing ahead to the rest of the tour­na­ment, Bur­kett, whose team will re­sume play in the semi­fi­nals on Thurs­day, ad­mit­ted it’s not go­ing to be easy.”

He said, “We have to take it one step at a time, and I’m con­fi­dent that we are ready for the chal­lenges that will come our way.

“We left home with the win to be the cham­pi­ons at the end of this tour­na­ment, and we are grow­ing in con­fi­dence with each game and each win,” end­ed Bur­kett.

In Mon­day’s sec­ond match, host Ja­maica al­so se­cured the top spot in Group A af­ter out­last­ing the US Vir­gin Is­lands 23-25, 25-22, 24-26, 25-20, and 15-11 in a clash of un­beat­en teams.

The win lift­ed the ‘Reg­gae Spik­ers’ 2-0 record and eight points, one more USVI (1-1) while Aru­ba, who was beat­en in both team match­es, end­ed in the third spot with a 0-2 record. 

In to­day’s men’s cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals, USVI comes up against the Cay­man Is­lands at 3 p.m., fol­lowed by Bar­ba­dos against Aru­ba two hours lat­er, with the win­ners ad­vanc­ing to the semi­fi­nals, where Ja­maica and T&T await.

Last night, the De­on Hutchin­son-coached T&T Un­der-19 women were hop­ing to re­bound from their open­ing loss to Bar­ba­dos when they met host Ja­maica in their fi­nal Group A round-robin match.

Both teams en­tered the match with 0-1 win-loss records af­ter de­feats at the hands of Bar­ba­dos, who ce­ment­ed an au­to­mat­ic semi­fi­nal spot as Group A win­ners af­ter get­ting the bet­ter of Ja­maica 23-25, 25-23, 25-17, 25-21 on Sun­day night to end with a 2-0 record af­ter they de­feat­ed T&T in Sat­ur­day’s cur­tain-rais­er 25-17, 25-21, 16-25, 25-13.

No mat­ter the out­come of the T&T and Ja­maica clash, T&T women will play the first quar­ter­fi­nal, while Ja­maican women play their quar­ter­fi­nal at 7 p.m..

On Mon­day night in Group B, reign­ing cham­pi­ons the US Vir­gin Is­lands se­cured the top spot and an au­to­mat­ic semi­fi­nal place af­ter eas­ing past Cu­ra­cao 25-12, 25-10, 25-12, while the lat­ter played their fi­nal pool match against Aru­ba yes­ter­day to de­ter­mine the sec­ond and third po­si­tions ahead of to­day’s quar­ter­fi­nals.

Re­sults

U-19 Boys

Yes­ter­day

Group B: Bar­ba­dos bt Cay­man Is­lands 25-9, 25-19, 25-19

Mon­day

Group A: Ja­maica bt USVI 23-25, 25-22, 24-26, 25-20, 15-11

Group B: T&T bt Bar­ba­dos 25-22, 24-26, 26-24, 25-22

Girls

USVI bt Cu­ra­cao 25-12, 25-10, 25-12