Barbados take 10th men title

Playing like true champions, the Barbadians held off Trinidad and Tobago in three exciting sets 25-22, 25-23, 25-23 at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium to put a cap on their perfect run throughout the week-long tournament.

“We played great. We had our game plan and we struck to it,” said outside hitter Renier Grace. “We knew that we were the best team here and so we just had to go out and prove it.”

Coach Ludger Niles said Barbados had been winning for so long that it was customary for Barbados to come up big in the championship game. He stressed however this final was for bragging rights.

“Trinidad beat us in Colombia and they were ragging and bragging and we were out for revenge,” Niles stressed. “I told the Trinidadian coach (Gideon Dickson) that I’m going to give him three straight.

“All of my guys were focused and we gave them a warning. They just went out there and did it in three straight, as we had predicted.”

Niles said all they did was work on shutting down Trinidad and Tobago’s middle game and once they did that, they were able to pull off the win.

Fabian Cox led the attack with 11 kills while Grace finished with eight.

Captain Elwin Oxley, voted the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, came up with five blocks. For TT, the high-flying Marc-Anthony Honore had a game high 13 kills and three blocks, while Nolan Tash finished with ten kills.

TT’s coach Dickson said they were caught flat-footed by the perennial champions. “Barbados played like champions and they deserved to win,” he said. “We have never been in these territories in a final, so once we got here, I felt that we just choked.” (CMC).