Nigel Si­mon

France-based cap­tain, Krys­tle Es­delle, had a match-high 20 points as T&T "Ca­lyp­so Sip­kers" got its first win of the tenth Pan Amer­i­can Women's Vol­ley­ball Cup with a straight sets vic­to­ry over Cos­ta Ri­ca. This was on Tues­day night in Mex­i­co. In a clash be­tween teams with 0-4 records on the fi­nal day of round-robin pool play in the 12-team tour­na­ment, T&T emerged vic­to­ri­ous 25-21, 25-15, 25-22 in 75 min­utes at the Uni­ver­si­dad Au­tono­ma de Ciu­dad Juarez Pavil­ion, Chi­huahua.

Poland-based Chan­non Thomp­son, 17, added 15 while T&T's vice-cap­tain Kel­ly-Anne Billingy chipped in with 13 for the three-time reign­ing Caribbean cham­pi­ons and four-time win­ners over­all. Karen Cope with ten points was the best for Cos­ta Ri­ca. Speak­ing af­ter the win, which came af­ter loss­es to top ranked Brazil, as well as USA, Puer­to Ri­co and Pe­ru, an ex­cit­ed Es­delle said: "We be­gan a lit­tle bit shaky, but we con­cen­trat­ed and be­lieved in our­selves to prove every­one wrong, we are very glad to have won."

T&T coach, Cuban-born Fran­cis­co "Panchee" Cruz, al­so ex­pressed his de­light in his team's win which he said was down to mak­ing few er­rors. "Usu­al­ly Cos­ta Ri­ca has beat­en T&T but we fo­cused on keep­ing the girls calm and pushed Cos­ta Ri­ca to score their own points and not by our mis­takes; I be­lieve we ben­e­fit­ted from the teams we faced pre­vi­ous­ly." It was the sec­ond straight year T&T had beat­en Cos­ta Ri­ca at the event. Fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's rest day, T&T will meet Group A fourth placed fin­ish­ers, Cana­da in one of two sev­enth to tenth place semi­fi­nal match­es from 6 pm to­day with host Mex­i­co fac­ing Pe­ru in the oth­er. The win­ner of the sev­enth to tenth semi­fi­nal match­es meet the quar­ter­fi­nal losers to­mor­row in the fifth to eighth semi­fi­nals.

Re­sults

Group A

Dom Re­pub­lic bt Cu­ba 18-25, 35-33, 25-20, 25-21

Ar­genti­na bt Mex­i­co 25-18, 25-23, 25-14

Cana­da bt Chile 25-19, 25-12, 25-10

Group B

T&T bt Cos­ta Ri­ca 25-21, 25-15, 25-22

Puer­to Ri­co bt Pe­ru 25-15, 25-21, 31-33 25-13

Brazil bt USA 28-30, 25-18, 25-19, 17-25, 15-11

To­day's match­es

Venue: Uni­ver­si­dad Au­tono­ma de Ciu­dad Juarez

Clas­si­fi­ca­tion 11/12

Chile vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 6 pm

Clas­si­fi­ca­tion sev­enth - tenth semi­fi­nals:

Pe­ru vs Mex­i­co, 8 pm

Cana­da vs T&T, 10 pm

Quar­ter­fi­nals:

Venue: Cole­gio de Bachilleres Gym­na­si­um.

Cu­ba vs Puer­to Ri­co, 8 pm

USA vs Ar­genti­na, 10 pm