CVC silver

TEN-TIME kings Barbados suffered their most humiliating defeat and first ever straight sets hammering in last night’s finals of the 13th Caribbean Volleyball Championships (CVC) in Paramaribo, Suriname.The Bajans were destroyed by their old sporting nemesis, Trinidad and Tobago, who took the one-sided contest 25-19, 25-20, 25-20, to win their first men’s CVC.  With two-times queens Trinidad and Tobago booked to play Suriname later in the night, the twin island republic seemed destined to join Barbados in being double-crown champions at CVC in 2010.Barbados would have entered the finals with the confidence of a preliminary straight sets victory over Trinidad and Tobago and then a similar blow-out over Guadeloupe in the semi-finals.  Trinidad and Tobago reached the finals after a bruising five-setter against The Bahamas.Even so, it was obvious that Trinidad and Tobago would have brought a different game to Barbados when they switched professional Mark Honore from centre to play net defence against Barbados’ hitters Fabian Cox and youngster Akeem Payne.  In addition, Trinidad and Tobago fielded two new middle players.Except for the indomitable veteran, Elwyn Oxley, none of the other Barbadians turned up for the party with Oxley slamming 25 kills and executing four blocks.  Payne and Cox attacked poorly and were ineffective while Damien Danzell and six-foot-six Romel Agard seemed to be attempting to stop smoke as the Trinidadians blasted Barbados’ court at will.Coach Ludger Niles tried to get his team to respond by rotating setters Dale Addison and Alain London, which was tantamount to trying to get Lewis Hamilton to catch Michael Schumacher in a Formula One race by changing Hamilton’s car engine and ignoring the fact that three of his tyres were flat.After the game a very disappointed Niles said that attending the games with such an inexperienced team and reaching the finals was commendable. “We wanted to regain the title but Trinidad played a fantastic game the day that we played our worst, therefore the better team won,” Niles said.While Niles accepted that some of the players had reached the end of their careers, he was optimistic about the future for some of the youngsters like Payne and Eadium Cobham.  “Our biggest goal will be to identify and train some youngsters who are six feet four and taller so that Barbados can get some decent middle players,” he said.“International volleyball revolves around tall and good middle players and I believe that we accomplished a lot in capturing the silver medal at this CVC considering that Barbados obviously had the poorest middles on show.”Earlier in the day, the Bajan girls captured their second bronze medal by whipping the United States Virgin Islands 25-8, 25-19, 25-19.  The Barbados volleyballers will return home today at 8 p.m.