TT women Caribbean volleyball queens

After winning the first two sets, Trinidad and Tobago had to dig down deep in the latter half of the game to hold off a resilient Barbados before emerging with a 25-17, 25-12, 22-25, 23-25, 15-12 verdict. The victory was also revenge for TT who lost in straight sets to Barbados in the preliminary stage of the tournament earlier in the week.

“It was a job well done,” said Kelly-Ann Billingy who sat out the earlier loss to Barbados.

“Barbados has been a tough champion. We’ve been trying for years to beat them and we finally did it. It just feels great to be the champions.”

Voted the Most Valuable Player, Billingy contributed a game high 23 kills to almost single-handedly lead her side.

Rheeza Grant, however, made a valuable contribution with 16 kills while Karen Moses also made her presence felt with five blocks.

Barbados coach Paul Payne said he was confident that they would have retained their title. “I thought that we should have won it but we made too many unforced errors in the last set. That was not good,” Payne stated.

“But we hung in there. We fought Trinidad to the end. But you can’t come from two sets down, win the next two to force a fifth set and then give up as many errors as we did and still expect to win.” (CMC)