An injury stricken senior women's volleyball squad has returned to training following its seventh place finish at the Norceca Women's Olympic Qualification Tournament in Tijuana, Mexico, earlier this month. The squad is preparing to compete at the Women's Pan American Cup in Mexico from July 11-21 and the Senior Caribbean Championship carded for US Virgin Islands from July 27 to August 4. In their Pool B matches at the Olympic Qualifiers, the 34th world ranked "Calypso Spikers", weakend by the absence of key players Kelly-Ann Billingy, Channon Thompson and Sinead Jack, were beaten by 10th ranked Cuba, 27th ranked Mexico and 28th ranked Costa Rica.
T&T, the four-time reigning Caribbean volleyball queens, also suffered a straight set loss to Mexico in their fifth to eighth semifinal playoff before avoiding the cellar spot by beating Honduras. Since then, the team has been boosted by the return of the Poland-based duo of Thompson and Jack, both of AZS Bialystock, after they missed the qualifiers due to club commitments. Contacted yesterday, however, assistant coach Nicholson Drakes said the sessions had been hampered by the injuries to some of the players, picked up both prior to and in Mexico.
He added, "Billingy (knees/ankle), Thompson (shoulder), Jack (knees) and Germany-based T&T captain, Krystle Esdelle (shoulder) of Club Schweriner SC are all being monitored as they recover from injuries and are not involved in the intense part of the sessions.
The remainder of the squad, coached by Francisco "Panchee" Cruz, will have training sessions at the Eastern Regional Indoor Sports Arena, Tacarigua, this evening and the Southern Regional Indoor Sports Arena, Pleasantville, tomorrow afternoon.
