Barbados’ bid to create volleyball history by making the semi-finals of the Norceca Men’s Under-21 Championship being played in El Salvador was put on hold until the outcome of last night’s game between Canada and Mexico.
Team manager Carol-Lyn Edghill said Barbados’ double upsets over host El Salvador and then Honduras to surprisingly top Group A did not qualify them for one of the automatic semi-finals tickets.
“With three zones, indications are that the team placing last in Group B, which looks like St Lucia, will be placed 10th and the two highest ranked winners in the three groups will get the semi-finals spots,” Edghill told the DAILY NATION.
“Cuba dropped one set to finish better than Barbados who dropped two and we would need Puerto Rico to carry Canada to five sets to take the second ranked spot,” added Edghill.
Should that match not go the distance, the young Bajans will be forced to play a quarter-final decider tonight.
On Wednesday night, the Bajans staged several comebacks to defeat Honduras 22-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-19.
Captain Ammuniki Wood led the way with 11 kills, six blocks and one ace. The United States-based Jabarry Goodridge slammed 15 kills, backed by one block and one ace, and Andriy Stapleton had ten kills and two blocks.
Barbados came back from a set down and scores of 1-6, 9-13 and 14-19 in the third set as well as 7-14 in the fourth to score their second win.
After storming back to take the third set and go two up, Barbados started slowly once again to face the threat of a decider.
Original starting setter Kimar Hinds replaced Paul Doughty as he returned to the court from the second set and in that critical fourth set Hinds showed greater accuracy in piloting Stapleton, Goodridge and Wood to attack well enough to offset numerous passing errors by Barbados.
The blocking of Wood was outstanding as he scored six blocks which saw Barbados moving from 7-14 to lock the scores at 14, 15 and 16 before assuming a lead that was never relinquished after a surge to 22-17.
The outstanding players for Honduras were Williams Thompson who scored 17 points and Ornello Watler, ten.
Barbados coach John Stuart, while expressing joy with the team’s success, has called for greater consistency.
“We showed good fighting spirit and we are getting good support from the subs when they enter the game,” he said.
“However, there is a lot of room for improvement, as I haven’t seen Jabarry, Andriy, Carlos [Cyrus] and Chioke [Holder] playing at their best. Libero Stephen [Packer] is having a great tournament and Adam [Niles] replaced Chioke yesterday to play well.
“With greater selection choices from the setter we can achieve our goals.”
Goodridge tops the Best Scorers ranking with 36 points, one more than Cuban Abrahan Alfonso and Osmany Uriarte who are joint second. Wood is fourth with 29 points while Stapleton is fifth with 22 points.
Wood is the top blocker with eight blocks, while Uriarte has six.
The Group B action on Wednesday night saw Canada wrecking St Lucia 25-10, 25-7, 25-8, while in Group C Cuba stopped two-time defending champs United States 25-13, 25-16, 25-18 and Mexico overcame Nicaragua 25-11, 25-19, 25-11.
