Nigel Si­mon

Se­nior na­tion­al women's vol­ley­ball team trio of Kel­ly-Anne Billingy, Krys­tle Es­delle and Jali­cia Ross have signed pro­fes­sion­al con­tracts with Eu­ro­pean clubs. Es­delle, 26, the cap­tain of the na­tion­al team left for France on Thurs­day where she joins French Di­vi­sion of Ex­cel­lence women's club, Quim­per Vol­ley. It will be the sec­ond pro­fes­sion­al out­ing for the lanky left hand­ed out­side-hit­ter. Ear­li­er this year, she en­joyed a three-month spell in In­done­sia with Pro­Li­ga com­peti­tors' Jakar­ta BNI. Last month, Es­dell led the T&T women's team to a third straight lien on the Caribbean vol­ley­ball crown and fourth over­all in team his­to­ry. Both Billingy and Ross, for­mer stu­dents and top play­ers at Mar­shall State Uni­ver­si­ty in the USA, will be head­ing off to Spain to pick up con­tracts with Women's Su­perLi­ga out­fit, Club Volei­bol Playas de Benidorm in the 12-team league.

For Billingy, this will al­so be her sec­ond pro­fes­sion­al con­tract, hav­ing en­joyed a spell with Puer­to Ri­can club, Va­len­cianas de Jun­cos. Bil­llingy was vot­ed as the "Most Valu­able Play­er" and "Best At­tack­er" at the re­gion­al tour­na­ment in Suri­name, last month. Ross con­firmed that both her and Billingy's con­tracts were se­cured through their US-based agents, Nick Ptaschin­ki who works out of Bring It Pro­mo­tions. "We will be spend­ing sev­en to eight months with the club de­pend­ing on how well the team does in the league and play­offs," Ross said yes­ter­day. With re­gards to sign­ing her first pro­fes­sion­al deal, the elat­ed Ross said, "Hon­est­ly, I'm very ex­cit­ed about sign­ing the con­tract and get­ting a chance to play in Spain." An un­der­grad­u­ate in Mar­ket­ing and hold­er of a Mas­ters in Arts of Teacher (MAT), Ross point­ed out there were oth­er of­fers on the ta­ble but the chance to play in Spain came at the per­fect tim­ing. "For me there were oth­er of­fers to sign pro­fes­sion­al con­tracts be­fore with clubs in Italy, Poland and Switzer­land.

How­ev­er, the tim­ing was nev­er right as I want­ed to com­plete my stud­ies. "Now that I have fin­ished with my school­ing I'm anx­ious­ly look­ing ahead to com­pet­ing in one of the best women's vol­ley­ball league in the world and com­ing up against some of the best play­ers. "The league is a very com­pet­i­tive one and will be a new chal­lenge for me and a new en­vi­ron­ment," added Ross who plays the mid­dle-block­er po­si­tion. A for­mer stu­dent at Caripichaima Ju­nior Sec­ondary and Cou­va Sec­ondary, Ross said her fam­i­ly and na­tion­al coach, Cuban-born Fran­cis­co "Panchee" Cruz have been very sup­port­ive. "He (Cruz) is very ex­cit­ed for us and he be­lieves it will help us to im­prove as play­ers. It will al­so be a chance for us to at the end of the stint to bring back home what we have learnt and share it with our na­tion­al team-mates which will al­so help them to im­prove in­d­vid­u­al­ly and the na­tion­al team as a whole as well.