Nigel Si­mon

Ti­tle-hold­ers Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (women) and Glam­or­gan (men) can ex­pect strong chal­lenges in their bid to re­peat as cham­pi­ons when the Caribbean Vol­ley­ball League host­ed by the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion with the sup­port of the North, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Vol­ley­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion (Norce­ca) spikes off to­day.The league, now in its sec­ond year, takes place at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sports and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion­al Cen­tre, St Au­gus­tine, from to­day (Wednes­day May 29) un­til Sun­day, June 2.

To­day, in their open­ing match­es, UTT faces debu­tants New Aris­ing Sport­ing Com­pa­ny (NASC) from 7 pm while two hours lat­er Tech­nocrats come up against To­co Youths, an­oth­er team on de­but.In the first ses­sion from 12 noon, last year's run­ner-up Tech­nocrats (men) meets BIG South East Port-of-Spain (SE­PoS) while Glam­or­gan women, beat­en in last year's fi­nal, faces Tech­nocrats at 2 pm.

Last year in the women's fi­nal na­tion­al se­nior team cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle was vot­ed as the "Most Valu­able Play­er" of the tour­na­ment af­ter she led UTT past Glam­or­gan 27-29, 23-25, 25-23, 26-24, 17-15 in a very en­ter­tain­ing fi­nal to cap­ture the US$5,000 win­ner-take-all top prize. This was af­ter Glam­or­gan held 18-14 and 24-21 leads in the third and fourth sets, re­spec­tive­ly.For this year's event, UTT will once again be led by its core of na­tion­al play­ers led by Es­delle, Chan­non Thomp­son, Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford, Abi­gail Gloud, Ab­by Black­man, Renele Forde and Sinead Jack.

Thomp­son, 19, is com­ing off a stel­lar two days of com­pe­ti­tion in the Norce­ca Sec­ond Round Women's Group I qual­i­fiers in which she was vot­ed as the "Most Valu­able Play­er" along with cop­ping the "Best Scor­er," "Best Spik­er" and "Best Serv­er" awards while Clif­ford col­lect­ed the "Best Libero," "Best Re­ceiv­er" and "Best Dig­ger" and Jack, the "Best Block­er."But this year, Glam­or­gan has beefed up its squad with the in­clu­sion of Amer­i­can trio Kim Willough­by, Kaylee Mann and Gwen­dolyn Rock­er, in ad­di­tion to the re­turn­ing pair of Eu­ro­pean-based Bar­ba­di­ans, Shari Matthews (Ser­bia) and Ani­cia Wood (Spain).

They will be joined by na­tion­al play­ers Fin­land-based Dar­lene Ramdin, Ayan­na Dyette and Rechez Lyn­d­say.In the Tech­nocrats squad are na­tion­al play­ers An­drea Kin­sale, Samatha Prescott, Kel­ly-Anne Billingy and Rheeza Grant as well as Cu­ra­cao's Chris­tine An­tho­ny, Ja­maican Cher­ine Richards and USA's Mea­gan Jo­hansen, while US Vir­gin Is­lands duo Valis­sia Brath­waite and Danielle Selkridge as well as St Lu­cians Tra­maine Ed­wards, Da­nia Hamil­ton, Saman­tha Mann and Kashima Noel are part of the NASC con­tin­gent.The men's four-team tour­na­ment, which al­so fea­tures last year's beat­en fi­nal­ists Tech­nocrats, BIG SE­PoS and To­co Youths, will al­so see a host of in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers head­ed by lo­cal Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore.

Hon­ore is com­ing off a suc­cess­ful sea­son in Eu­rope where he helped Ben­fi­ca to its fifth Por­tugese A-1 Di­vi­sion ti­tle and will line up for Tech­nocrats along­side fel­low na­tion­al play­ers Kevin Nim­rod, Sean Mor­ri­son, as well as ju­niors Nicholas Prescott and New­ton Grant.The in­ter­na­tion­al con­tin­gent in­cludes Dale Ad­di­son (Bar­ba­dos), Jose Cac­eras (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic), Elvin Con­tr­eras (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic), Delford Mor­gan (Ja­maica) and Ri­car­do Chong (Ja­maica).Glam­or­gan has al­so bol­stered its squad with na­tion­al set­ter Saleem Ali and Ryan Stew­art be­ing joined by Ba­hami­an trio By­ron Fer­gu­son, Shedrick Forbes and Prince'taniqe Wil­son and USA's Jor­dan Du­Fault.

Last year, Glam­or­gan bat­tled past Tech­nocrats 26-24, 28-30, 18-25, 31-29, 16-14 in­spired by the ath­leti­cism of guest play­er Ger­many's Se­bas­t­ian Haehn­er, the men's tour­na­ment "Most Valu­able Play­er" award win­ner, and libero Ja­maal Fer­gu­son of Ba­hamas.How­ev­er, while Fer­gu­son has re­turned, Haehn­er has not, leav­ing the way open for pos­si­bly a new cham­pi­on to emerge.Bar­ba­di­an duo Fa­bi­en Cox and Alain Lon­don will link up with T&T in­ter­na­tion­als Jes­sel Davis, Bran­don Legall, Nolan Tash and Akim Bushe as well as Suri­namese pair Gi­no Naar­den and Keven Spork­slede.New­com­ers To­co Youths have ac­quired the ser­vices of Guyana's Quen­cy Math­er­son, St Lu­cian beach play­er Joseph Cler­cent and Puer­to Ri­cans Pablo Guz­man and Rober­to Ro­driguez to join the lo­cal beach quar­tet of Si­mon Blake, Col­in Bernard, Fa­bi­en Whit­field and Daneil Williams.

The four teams in each group will first con­test a round-robin se­ries at the end of which first plays fourth and sec­ond meets third in the semi­fi­nals on Sat­ur­day, ahead of Sun­day's fi­nal and third place play-offs.Over­all, 31 over­seas play­ers from Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Puer­to Ri­co, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, USA, Suri­name, Guyana and Cu­ra­cao will be on show.

Tour­na­ment Group­ings and Sched­ule:

Men: Glam­or­gan, Tech­nocrats, BIG SE­PoS, To­co Youths

Women: UTT, Glam­or­gan, Tech­nocrats, NASC

Venue: Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sports and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion­al Cen­tre, St Au­gus­tine:

To­day (Wednes­day)

Men:

Tech­nocrats vs BIG SE­PoS, 12 noon

Glam­or­gan vs To­co Youths, 9 pm

Women:

Glam­or­gan vs Tech­nocrats, 2 pm

UTT vs NASC, 7 pm

Thurs­day:

Men:

Tech­nocrats vs To­co Youths, 2 pm

Glam­or­gan vs BIG SE­PoS, 6 pm

Women:

Glam­or­gan vs NASC, 12 noon

UTT vs Tech­nocrats, 8 pm

Fri­day:

Men:

BIG SE­PoS vs To­co Youths, 12 noon

Tech­nocrats vs Glam­or­gan, 8 pm

Women:

Tech­nocrats vs NASC, 2 pm

UTT vs Glam­or­gan, 6 pm

June 1:

Men:

Semi­fi­nals, 2 pm and 6 pm

Women:

Semi­fi­nals, 12 noon and 8 pm

June 2:

Men:

Third place, 12 noon

Fi­nal, 6 pm

Women:

Third place, 2 pm

Fi­nal, 4 pm