VOLLEYBALL

Trinidad and Tobago’s male beach volleyball players continue their march towards Olympic qualification when they commence the second round of the Continental Cup Men’s Inter- Zonal Beach Qualifiers which serves off on Castaways Beach, Antigua, today.

David Thomas Jr, coach of the national men and women beach volleyball teams says he sees no reason why the men’s quartet of Daneil Williams, Fabien Whitfield, Christian Francois and Simon Blake should not win gold when the second phase of the Caribbean Zonal Beach Volleyball Tournament, a qualifier to the NORCECA Continental Cup takes place in Antigua from Friday.

National beach volleyball. players, Fabien Whitfield, and. European-based senior professional,. Sinead Jack, have been selected. as the Trinidad and Tobago. Volleyball Federation’s (TT VF). Male and Female Athletes of the. Year.

This country’s junior men’s volleyball team stayed in contention for a medal at the tenth  Junior (Under-21) Championships by winning its final two Pool B matches.

The in-form Toco pair of Daneil Williams and Fabien Whitfield will lead five local teams into battle when the seventh and final leg of the NORCECA Continental Beach Volleyball Circuit takes places this weekend in Tobago.

Top local duo Fabien Whitfield and Daneil Williams will start as favourites to secure one of the two places available when the T&T Volleyball Federation stages its beach volleyball national team selection process for the second round of NORCECA Continental Olympic Qualifiers.

The local players will compete in three one-day tournaments, serving off today from 5.30 pm at the National Beach Volleyball Developmental Centre in Saith Park, Chaguanas, at the end of which the top two teams will earn tickets to St Lucia.

Last month, Whitfield and Williams claimed a second ever bronze medal finish on the NORCECA Tour when they placed third at the fifth stop of the Hickory Point Beach Sand Volleyball Complex in Tavares, Florida.

At the first round Caribbean Olympic Qualifiers which were held at Chaguanas, Whitfield and Williams won a “Golden Set” decider against Jamaica top pair of veteran Mark Lewis and Ryck Mc Kenzie 15-12, for a 2-1 T&T team victory.

Williams and Whitfield, who represented T&T at the Pan American Games, had earlier swept aside a visibly injured Donovan Richards and Christopher Walters 21-10, 21-15, for a 1-0 lead.

But Lewis/Mc Kenzie (Jamaica-A) kept alive their hopes of gold when they silenced Abraham Eccles and Tevin Joseph (TTO-B), 21-15, 21-13 to level the tie at 1-1 and set up the “Golden Set” where the host backed by a vociferous home crowd powered their way to victory.

Among the local women’s teams, Pan American Games participants, Ayana Dyette and Malika Davidson will start as favourites to earn tickets to Jamaica.

However, they will face a stern test from the pairs of Shenelle Gordon/Elki Phillip and Apphia Glasgow/La Teisha Joseph, all of whom represented T&T in the Caribbean first-round qualifier of the NORCECA Continental Cup Olympic Qualifiers which were held at Ocho Rios Bay, Jamaica, in May.

Back then the T&T women defeated their Barbadian opponents, 2-1 in their third place playoff via the “Golden Set”, with Glasgow and Joseph beating Shari Matthews and Anicia Wood, 16-14.

Jamaica, which defeated Cayman Islands in the final, along with fifth and sixth-placed finishers Suriname and US Virgin Islands, all earned spots in a second-round tournament of the qualifiers against the top six teams from the Eastern Caribbean zone.

Additionally all who are interested in becoming a beach volleyball coach are invited to attend a meeting at the same venue for 6 pm today.

•For further information, please contact Colin Charles @ 375-1227 or David Thomas @ 356-6792.

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