T&T boys’ Un­der-17 vol­ley­ball team stay in the hunt to con­test the gold medal match in the four-na­tion in­au­gur­al Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) U-17 Cham­pi­onships when they bat­tled past host Ja­maica in four sets at the G C Fos­ter Col­lege of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport in Ja­maica, Fri­day (Au­gust 1).

Beat­en in their tour­na­ment open­er by Bar­ba­dos 9-25, 15-25, 17-25 in 64 min­utes on Thurs­day, the Cur­tis Bur­kette-coached T&T U-17 boys re­bound­ed with a come-from-be­hind win 22-25, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21 to im­prove to a 1-1 win-loss record and four points, six be­hind Bar­ba­dos. The Bar­ba­di­ans made it two wins from as many match­es and are cer­tain of a spot in the fi­nal af­ter beat­ing Suri­name 25-19, 25-17, 25-13 to im­prove to a 2-0 record and ten points.

With the loss, Suri­name dropped to a 1-1 record and re­mained on five points af­ter beat­ing host Ja­maica 25-21, 25-16, 25-7 on Thurs­day night.

Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 2), T&T and Suri­name clash from 11 am in a vir­tu­al bat­tle for the sec­ond spot on the stand­ings and a place in Sun­day's (Au­gust 3) fi­nal against Bar­ba­dos, who close out round-robin play ver­sus Ja­maica from 6 pm.

At the end of the round-robin, the top two teams will meet to­mor­row for the gold medal while the third and fourth place teams clash for bronze.

The CA­ZO­VA U-17 Cham­pi­onship serves as the qual­i­fiers to the NORCE­CA U-17 Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onships which will be held in No­vem­ber 2025 and is al­so the qual­i­fi­er to the FIVB U-17 World Cham­pi­onships, which made its de­but in 2024.

T&T girls fall to Bar­ba­dos

The T&T girls’ U-17 vol­ley­ball team will go in­to their fi­nal round-robin against Suri­name Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 2) from 1 pm, need­ing a con­vinc­ing win to reach the fi­nal.

This af­ter, the Saleem Ali-coached young "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" went un­der to ri­vals Bar­ba­dos 26-24, 22-25, 23-25, 22-25 for their first loss in two match­es.

T&T went in­to the con­test brim­ming with con­fi­dence af­ter eas­ing past host Ja­maica 25-10, 25-15, 25-11 in 64 min­utes in their open­er on Thurs­day while Bar­ba­dos went un­der to Suri­name, al­so in straight sets, 23-25, 11-25, 22-25.

How­ev­er, af­ter edg­ing the first set, the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" failed to keep the mo­men­tum and suf­fered a four-set loss to drop their record to 1-1 and six points, the same as Bar­ba­dos, which has five points, while Suri­name was set to face Ja­maica in the last match on court last night.

On Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 2), T&T comes up against Suri­name from 1 pm, and Ja­maica bat­tles Bar­ba­dos from 4 pm, at the end of which the top two teams will meet on Sun­day for the gold medal while the third and fourth place teams clash for bronze.

Fri­day's re­sults

Boy’s Un­der-17

Bar­ba­dos bt Suri­name 25-19, 25-17, 25-13

T&T bt Ja­maica 22-25, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21

Girls U-17

Bar­ba­dos bt T&T 24-26, 25-22, 25-23, 25-22

Suri­name vs Ja­maica - late match

Re­main­ing sched­ule

Boy’s U-17

Sat­ur­day

T&T vs Suri­name, 10 am

Bar­ba­dos vs Ja­maica, 5 pm

Sun­day

Third place play­off: Third vs Fourth, 12 noon

Fi­nal: First vs Sec­ond, 5 pm

Girls U-17

Sat­ur­day

T&T vs Suri­name, 12 noon

Bar­ba­dos vs Ja­maica, 3 pm

Sun­day

Third place play­off: Third vs Fourth, 10 am

Fi­nal: First vs Sec­ond, 3 pm