Nigel Si­mon

T&T se­nior women vol­ley­ballers face Cos­ta Ri­ca from 2 pm in the 11th to 12th spot play­off at the Women’s Vol­ley­ball Pan Amer­i­can Cup in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, from 2 pm to­day.

This af­ter both teams were de­feat­ed in their re­spec­tive ninth to 12th semi­fi­nal play­offs match­es at the same venue.

In the day’s first match, Ar­genti­na brushed aside Cos­ta Ri­ca 25-16, 25-13, 25-12 while be­fore the Renele Forde-cap­tained T&T women's team end­ed the bot­tom of their four-team Pool B round-robin se­ries. T&T lost to de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons USA, Puer­to Ri­co and Cu­ba.

The 15-25, 15-25, 25-19 and 17-25 loss to Mex­i­co was per­haps the most dis­ap­point­ing ef­fort from the T&T women who were guilty of com­mit­ting 35 er­rors to Mex­i­co’s 15, a key fac­tor in the out­come of the con­test.

Melanie Quin­tero was the top scor­er for Mex­i­co with 15 points while cap­tain An­drea Rangel and Saman­tha Bricio both added 14, and Jo­ce­lyn Urias, 11, which in­clud­ed five ser­vice aces.

For T&T, Turkey-based Chan­non Thomp­son led all scor­ers with 20 points, Krys­tle Es­delle tal­lied 18 and Sinead Jack got 11.

T&T women held the edge on spikes 41-38 and blocks 11-6, while Mex­i­co dom­i­nat­ed on ser­vice aces, with 16, which the T&T play­ers found tough to cope with.

In yes­ter­day’s late match­es, in fifth to eighth semi­fi­nals, Cu­ba met Colom­bia and Pe­ru bat­tled Puer­to Ri­co.

This af­ter the USA beat Colom­bia 25-12, 25-17, 25-17 and Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic over­came Puer­to Ri­co, 25-21, 18-25, 21-25, 25-22, 15-10 in the main draw quar­ter­fi­nals to set up semi­fi­nal meet­ings with Cana­da and Brazil re­spec­tive­ly tonight.

T&T, which re­cent­ly cap­tured the Se­nior Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Women’s Cham­pi­onship for a record sev­enth straight time and eighth over­all, and are qual­i­fiers to the FIVB World Cham­pi­onship in Japan lat­er this year, had a best-ever fin­ish of ninth-placed fin­ish from last year in Pe­ru.

In 2016, the “Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers” end­ed in the tenth spot, which equalled equal their fin­ish­es from 2009-2013 while they end­ed12th on de­but in 2007 as well as 2008 and 11th in 2014.

The top five ranked teams at the con­clu­sion of the tour­na­ment in San­to Domin­go will earn tick­ets to next year’s Pan Amer­i­can Games in Li­ma, Pe­ru.