Morrison, Billingy — WITCO v-ball nominees

Trinidad and Tobago junior star players Sean Morrison and KellyAnn Billingy, both of Glamorgan Volleyball Club, were voted the Trinidad and Tobago Volleyball Federation’s WITCO nominees for the year 2003.

Morrison skippered the Trinidad and Tobago’s junior men’s team which placed fourth at the Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) Junior Championships held in Martinique. He edged out national senior vice-captain Nolan Tash, whom he partnered at the Pan-American Beach Volleyball competition in Puerto Rico. Morrison spearheaded Glamorgan’s exciting victory over Tash’s SEPOS to retain their Division One title last Sunday at the Central Regional Indoor Sports Arena, Chaguanas. The 18-year-old proved his prowess with power smashes in the crucial third and fourth sets which helped his team rebound from the 1-2 deficit against their Laventille-based archrivals. Glamorgan had taken an early lead by winning the hotly-contested first set at 25-23. But Tash played like a man possessed and unleashed a series of searing diagonal spikes which left his opponents bewildered as they claimed the next two sets at 21-25 and 20-25.

National captain Mark Daley engineered the spark in his younger counterpart Morrison as they fired from the front and back court with unerring accuracy regained the initiative by levelling at 25-21 before romping home winners once again by taking the tension-filled fifth and decisive set at 15-10. The scores were levelled at 10-10 but the effectiveness of Morrison, Daley, Kevin Edwards and Rodney Charles sealed the heart-stopper. It was this brilliant showing which titled the balance in favour of Morrison. However, the female nominee will stir debate as to the merit of Billingy getting the edge over Honore who has been in terrific form throughout the year and has emerged as Trinidad and Tobago’s brightest volleyball prospect.

While Billingy stimulated national passion last year, this was unquestionably Honore’s year of emergence from the shadows of her more established counterparts and held sway at the premier regional competitions. Both were outstanding at the CAZOVA Junior Championships in Martinique where TT successfully retained the title they won in Suriname in 2001. Billingy was voted “Most Valuable Player” and “Best Attacker” while Honore who excelled in the dual role as “Blocker” and “Attacker” was denied the honour of getting one of the special awards. This was because no statistical data was available to determine who were the overall outstanding players in each category.

Junior captain Aisha Sealy was voted “Best Setter” at the CAZOVA Senior Championships held in TT last year July and she and Honore were easily the more consistent and inspirational players at the Junior championships in Martinique. But they were probably denied the ultimate because of tardiness of the host in not providing proper scorers and statistics. However, these talented players were given the opportunity to showcase their talents at the region’s premier volleyball competition — the NORCECA senior Women Championships in Santo Domingo. This tournament was highly successful and well-organised and instantly all stats and reports were made available to all officials and players connected to the championships.