Host T&T will go af­ter the gold medal in the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Un­der-23 Men’s Cham­pi­onship host­ed by the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF) at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na, against Suri­name from 6 pm on Sun­day.

This af­ter both teams on their sec­ond match in as many out­ings at the same venue on Fri­day night ahead of their top-of-the-ta­ble round-robin meet­ing last night, a pre­view to tonight’s more im­por­tant du­el.

On Fri­day night, the Nicholas Williams-cap­tained “Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers” won for the sec­ond time in straight sets (3-0), beat­ing Guade­loupe 25-16, 25-13, 25-20 for a 2-0 record and a max­i­mum of ten points while their op­po­nents stayed on one point.

For T&T, the trio of Williams, Michael Bur­kett, and Jahreef Miguel were once again the main con­trib­u­tors with sev­er­al pow­er­ful spikes that left proved too much for Guade­loupe while on the de­fen­sive end, T&T was al­so very ef­fi­cient to keep their op­po­nents at bay.

Speak­ing af­ter his team’s win, T&T coach Sean Mor­ri­son said, “For us it was a good as we took it point by point, stayed con­sis­tent and came out with the win. We had a few er­rors in the first match and we came out tonight (Fri­day) and we lim­it­ed those er­rors, so we just have to stay fo­cused and take it game by game.”

Williams added, “We came here to win this tour­na­ment as our fo­cus is to get the win and bring home the gold medal and get to the NORCE­CA lev­el.

Guade­loupe cap­tain Noa Pig­nol said, “We did not have a good start to the match, but in the third set we played much bet­ter and we need to play like that for our next match.”

Gayetann Brous­sil­lon, coach of Mar­tinique, “We have to play much bet­ter than how we are play­ing at present.”

In yes­ter­day’s open­ing match of the fi­nal day of round-robin match­es, Guade­loupe and Mar­tinique clashed from 1 pm in a pre­view of their meet­ing to­day as well for the bronze medal from 12 noon.

Al­so on Fri­day, Suri­name made it two wins from as many match­es to reach the gold medal match when they bat­tled past Mar­tinique 25-27, 25-22, 25-7, 25-12 for a 2-0 win-loss record and eight points, to seal a spot in the gold medal match on Sun­day.

Mar­tinique si­lences T&T women to reach gold medal match

Mar­tinique se­cured the first spot avail­able in the fi­nal of the CA­ZO­VA U-23 Women’s Cham­pi­onship af­ter they swept host T&T (3-0) al­so at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na on Fri­day night.

Com­ing off a win against de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Suri­name in four sets on Thurs­day night, all eyes were on the very busi­ness-like Mar­tinique line-up, and they did not dis­ap­point as led by cap­tain Maelyss Meli­nard-Chanteur they hum­bled T&T 25-20, 25-13, 25-14 for a 2-0 record and nine points at the top of the four-team ta­ble.

De­on Hutchin­son, coach of T&T said, “Ser­vice was re­ceiv­ing was a huge is­sue for us tonight as well as Mar­tinique was serv­ing tough. But, at the end of the day, we have to dig deep to win our next match against Suri­name to have a chance to play Mar­tinique again in the fi­nal.

“I’m con­fi­dent that my team can grow from this and once we are able to cope well with our ser­vice re­ceive game, we will play a bet­ter game.”

Hutchin­son al­so not­ed that team cap­tain L’fe Roberts who sus­tained an in­jury at the start of the sec­ond set is in good health and will be avail­able for his team’s must-win match against Guade­loupe.

Roberts, who was forced to sit out the ear­ly part of the sec­ond set af­ter col­lid­ing with the net, but re­turned lat­er on added, “I feel as though we need to have a lit­tle more grit and pos­i­tive en­er­gy flow­ing to fight back.”

Look­ing ahead to the match against Suri­name with the win­ner set to join Mar­t­in­qi­ue in to­day’s fi­nal, Roberts said she hopes to “lead from the front and bring the pos­i­tive en­er­gy to her team”.

Meli­nard-Chanteur said her team was re­al­ly fo­cused and ready for the match against T&T and she was very hap­py with the win.

Mar­tinique coach Ed­dy Eri­alc said he was hap­py with the win but felt his team could do bet­ter in gen­er­al.

“We got the win, but our game was not con­sis­tent as we did well in the first two sets and then in the third set our game dropped.”

Yes­ter­day’s fi­nal day of round-robin match­es sched­uled were to fea­ture Cu­ra­cao tack­ling Mar­tinique while T&T clos­es out against Suri­name, with the win­ner se­cur­ing the oth­er spot in to­day’s fi­nal against Mar­tinique from 6 pm, while the third and fourth placed teams will con­test the bronze medal, two hours ear­li­er.

Suri­name taste first vic­to­ry in CA­ZO­VA U-23 women’s tour­ney

De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Suri­name strolled to their first vic­to­ry in the women’s edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion beat­ing Cu­ra­cao, 25-16, 25-11, 25-21.

Com­ment­ing on the win, Suri­name cap­tain, Chon­telle Lisse said, “We were a lit­tle bit more con­fi­dent to­day. Yes­ter­day’s game we were a lit­tle bit ner­vous, but we need­ed to come and get the win, and we are go­ing to put in a strong per­for­mance.”

Team coach of Suri­name Vic­tor Les­per­ans added, “Yes­ter­day, we were ner­vous in our first match, but to­day (Fri­day) every­body was hap­py, and we had a nice prepa­ra­tion for the match against T&T.”

Sun­day (Ju­ly 13) match­es

Men:

Third place: Mar­tinique vs Guade­loupe, 12 noon

Fi­nal: Suri­name vs T&T, 6 pm

Women:

Third place: Cu­ra­cao vs T&T/Suri­name, 2 pm

Fi­nal: Mar­tinique vs T&T/Suri­name, 4 pm