Nigel Si­mon

T&T se­nior women's vol­ley­ball team will come up against some of the world's best teams when they com­pete at the Tenth Women's Pan Amer­i­can Cup from June 29-Ju­ly 10 in Chi­huahua, Mex­i­co.The de­ci­sion was tak­en by the Norce­ca Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and Board of Ad­min­is­tra­tion fol­low­ing the re­ports pre­sent­ed by the dif­fer­ent or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tees on Sat­ur­day in Col­orado, USA.

In ad­di­tion to T&T, the oth­er women's teams list­ed to par­tic­i­pate in­clude two-time win­ner and de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (2008 & 2010), four-time win­ner Cu­ba (2002, 2004, 2005, 2007); two-time cham­pi­on Brazil (2006 & 2009) and USA (2003).Al­so ap­pear­ing are Ar­genti­na, Cana­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Mex­i­co, Pe­ru, Puer­to Ri­co and Venezuela.The Brazil­ians who sur­ren­dered the ti­tle last year af­ter field­ing a ju­nior team are cur­rent­ly the top-ranked team in the world while USA is num­ber two.Cu­ba has a rank of eight while Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (#13), Pe­ru (#15), Puer­to Ri­co (#17), Cana­da (#20), Cos­ta Ri­ca (#22), Ar­genti­na (#25 and Mex­i­co (#27) are al­so ranked above T&T (#29). Venezuela, ranked 35th, is the on­ly team list­ed to com­pete that is be­low T&T in the world rank­ings.

How­ev­er, the lo­cal men's team, which is ranked 64th in the world along­side Mon­tene­gro and Den­mark and won the Caribbean crown for the first time last year in Suri­name, did not qual­i­fy to com­pete in this year's Pan Amer­i­can Cup.The men's tour­na­ment in Cana­da from June 11-19 will fea­ture Ar­genti­na, Ba­hamas, Brazil, Cana­da, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Mex­i­co, Pana­ma, Puer­to Ri­co, Venezuela and USA. The lo­cal women's team un­der coach Fran­cis­co "Panchee" Cruz has been in train­ing since mid-Feb­ru­ary and will be mak­ing its fifth straight ap­pear­ance in the tour­na­ment.

This af­ter, T&T end­ed in cel­lar-spot on de­but in 2007 in the 12-team com­pe­ti­tion fol­lowed by 11th in 2008; tenth in 2009 and tenth again last year.In­clud­ed in the cur­rent na­tion­al women's train­ing squad are all the mem­bers of last year's team mi­nus the in­jured Jali­cia Ross on In­done­sia-club Petrokimia.Ross, 26, has re­turned home to T&T to un­der­go surgery and is ex­pect­ed to be out of ac­tion for a year af­ter she tore her left ACL (an­te­ri­or cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment) while train­ing with her club on April 10.

Fol­low­ing the Pan Amer­i­can Cup, the T&T women, win­ners of se­nior Caribbean ti­tle for a third straight year in Suri­name last Ju­ly and fourth over­all are al­so sched­uled to com­pete in the Norce­ca Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship in Caguas, Puer­to Ri­co (Sep­tem­ber 10-18) and Con­ti­nen­tal Olympic Qual­i­fiers card­ed for De­cem­ber 10 to 18 at a venue to be de­cid­ed.While Ross is un­avail­able, Cruz will still have the ser­vices of five oth­er over­seas-based play­ers.They in­clude France-based na­tion­al cap­tain, Krys­tle Es­delle of third di­vi­sion club, Quim­per Vol­ley; 17-year-old Poland-based duo Sinead Jack and Chan­non Thomp­son of AZS Bi­a­lystok, Dar­lene Ramdin (St John's Uni­ver­si­ty, USA) and Renele Forde (Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, USA).

train­ing squad

Women vol­ley­ball train­ing squad: Rheeza Grant (UTT), Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford (UTT), Shurvette Beck­les (UTT), De­lana Mitchell (UTT), Abi­gail Gloud (UTT), Ab­by Black­man (UTT), Cab­bri­ni Fon­cette (UTT), An­drea Kin­sale (Tech­nocrats), Cherese Samp­son (Glam­or­gan), Mar­isha Her­bert (Glam­or­gan), Phyle­cia Arm­strong (Glam­or­gan), Kel­ly-Anne Billingy (Tech­nocrats), Krys­tle Es­delle (Quim­per Vol­ley, France), Sinead Jack (AZS Bi­a­lystok, Poland), Chan­non Thomp­son (AZS Bi­a­lystok, Poland), Dar­lene Ramdin (St John's Uni­ver­si­ty, USA), Renele Forde (Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, USA)

Tech­ni­cal staff: Fran­cis­co Cruz (coach), Nichol­son Drakes (as­sis­tant coach), Daryl Davis (as­sis­tant coach), Es­seil Seecha­ran (as­sis­tant coach).