BARBADOS’ blazing battle for gold at the third Youth Caribbean Volleyball Championship fizzled into a scramble for bronze when the boys were stunned in the semi-finals by Curacao 25-11, 20-25, 16-25, 21-25, at Central High School here on Tuesday.
Curacao might have been the defending champions, but they were one of the teams Barbados vanquished in the preliminaries before hitting a wall to lose their next two matches after impressive starts.
The attack of leading spiker Jabarry Goodridge saw Barbados smashing Curacao in the first set and then leading 18-14 in the second set.
However, a plethora of serving errors by the team and attacking gaffes by Nathaniel McClean and Andriy Stapleton left them bleeding points profusely with Goodridge stranded in the back court.
Even so, it was obvious that Curacao had done their homework to deal with Barbados’ inability to adjust in battle.
McClean was replaced by Adam Niles, who played steady and Stapleton started to support Goodridge in offense, but Curacao’s Derrick Alexandre, Shari Gabriel and Gilbert Vivo played well at net with setter Djuticson Meulens keeping those hitters in the game.
While Barbados lost several points in back court due to poor passing and unforced errors, Curacao brought on reserves whose sizes suggested that they should have been at home preparing for the 11-Plus Examination.
But, those reserves gave lessons in serving and ground defence which mocked the Bajans’ bigger size.
Barbados were to play Trinidad and Tobago yesterday for the bronze after the United States Virgin Islands boys maintained their unbeaten run by thumping Trinidad in the semis 25-16, 25-18, 25-16.
The USVI girls were stunned in their semis against Haiti, losing 12-25, 16-25, 26-28.
USVI and Barbados girls were to play for the bronze after Barbados gave a spirited fight, with Kayla Richards and Ashley Marshall trying to counter the fire of Trinidad’s Malika Davidson and Reann Young.
Trinidad and Tobago took the match 25-12, 25-15, 25-20, to set up a showdown with Haiti for the gold medal last night.
