The National U-21 male volleyball team recently returned from St Maarten after placing fourth in the ECVA Junior Championships held there last weekend. Despite only two months of training, the team performed fairly well at the tournament much to the delight of the coaching staff.
Dominica started off with a bang crushing Anguilla with what tournament officials class as an “impressive win.” The 3-0 victory saw scores of 25-16 25-15 25-23. Next up a 5 set thriller against Grenada tested the boys’ fortitude. After easily handling Grenada in sets 1 and 2 (25-14 25-19), Coach Robinson’s team suffered what he termed a “meltdown” which saw Grenada trounce on Dominica 25-6. The fourth set was more of the same as the Grenadians continued to gain steam and won the set 25-18. Dominica was able to hang on in the 5th and won the game 15-11. The team would advance to face long time, bitter rivals St Lucia in the semi finals.
Unfortunately for the first timers, St lucia would continue its dominance in the sport as they would defeat Dominica in straight sets (3-0) to advance to the finals leaving our team to face hosts St Maarten in the bronze medal match. Amidst a raucous home crowd, the lack of experience of our young players saw Dominica fall to another straight set defeat. Coach Robinson also cited a lack of proper preparations and necessary facilities as the cause of his team’s demise. The tournament was won by st Vincent and the Grenadines while in the women’s division St Martin emerged victors.
The DAVA again thanks the DOC and LIME for their continued support to our national teams.
Pic : from l to r
Back row: Ray Robinson (coach), Faywani Foye, Darnel Pollock, Marcus Cornelius, Arden Elmes, Lesroy King, Kede Edmund, Jeffrey Edmund (trainer/asst coach.)
Front row: Tamir Lawrence (captain) Wayne James, Camron James, Akeem James
