Barbados’ Young Volleyballers created history with a straight sets victory over Dominican Republic to advance to play for the fifth position when the NORCECA Under-17 Continental Championships entered the penultimate day on Saturday in Managua.
The historic victory placed the Under-17 boys to match or better the senior team’s sixth position gained at the NORCECA final in 2007 in Anaheim, United States. However, the young team has become the first group of Barbadian volleyballers to win more than one game in the same tournament at this level as well as scoring their first victory in straight sets.
In 1991 Barbados men beat Dominican Republic at NORCECA in Puerto Rico, they defeated Colombia at CAC in San Salvador in 2002 and scored a win over Mexico in 2007 in the United States. All of those matches went to five sets.
Coach Elwyn Oxley, who was a member of those senior teams, opted to start the same six for the entire game, reverting to pint-sized Liam Yearwood playing outside along with leading attacker Jordan John. The livewire Joshua Ashby returned to the middle with Adriano Als while captain Pierre Gill was opposite setter Ralani Crichlow.
Yearwood enhanced Barbados’ passing and defence game in tandem with libero Mykhail Gooding. In addition, Yearwood confounded their opponents with light serves which enabled the Bajans to offset the Dominican Republic’s passing and attacking game.
Ashby displayed his blocking skills with three monster stops at the net on six-foot fiveinch Castillo Ledesma, who was the Dominican Republic’s primary weapon. In contrast, the attack from John, Gill, Ashby and off-speed hits by Yearwood saw the Bajans establishing dominant leads of 18-9 in the first set and 12-5 in the second.
With the ignominy of a straight sets defeat staring them in the face, the Dominican Republic grabbed their first lead of the match 4-2 in the third set. Barbados reignited to power to 9-5 and from 13-9 the Bajans jumped
to 15-9, thanks to back-toback aces from John.
With Oxley giving court time to all of the reserves, the Dominican Republic sought to rebound to carry the game into another set after the Bajans moved closer to the finish line on 16-9. Edging from 12-20 to 14-20, the Dominican Republic were then silenced by that monster block from Ashby.
An ace from Jaelan Grant at 22-14 forced Dominican Republic to call a time-out. But, their too-late flurry ended disappointingly with a serving error at game and match point, 18-24. John led Barbados with 14 kills and two aces, Yearwood contributed six kills, two aces and one block, with Ashby and Pierre adding eight and six points respectively.
Yesterday Barbados were to meet Costa Rica for fifth spot. The Bajans lost their preliminary encounter to Costa Rica who defeated hosts Nicaragua 25-15, 25-15, 25-8 in the qualification match on Saturday. Both Nicaragua and Dominican Republic ended last in their pool play.
The semi-finals’ matches played on Saturday saw the previously unbeaten United States toppling to archrivals Cuba 22-25, 25-27, 25-12, 20-25. Puerto Rico edged Mexico 16-25, 25-23, 25-21, 17-25, 15-12. Yesterday Cuba were to meet Puerto Rico for the gold.
The Barbados team will return home today at 2:25 p.m. via Panama. (KB)
