Girls of TTO and Suriname to meet for Olympic spot

MARACAS BAY, Trinidad, November 27, 2013 - The Trinidad & Tobago pair of Chelsi Ward and Malika Davidson will come up against Suriname's Sigourney Kame and Cabriella Bouterse in the Under-18 women's gold medal match for a spot at next year's Beach Volleyball Tournament at the Youth Olympic Games to be held in Nanjing, China.

This after both teams won through their respective matches to get to the gold medal contest of the six-team tournament when the  two-day Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) Zone of NORCECA Youth Qualifiers serve off at Maracas Bay, Trinidad on a very raining and windy Wednesday.

In the women’s main draw, the top seeded Ward and Davidson who represented Trinidad & Tobago at the FIVB Under-21 Beach Volleyball World Championship which was held in Croatia earlier this year defeated fourth ranked Barbadian duo, Janina Mayers and Deandra Small 21-14, 21-18 and 21-15, 21-16, in their two-match series after receiving a bye a quarterfinal round.

On the other side of the draw, sixth-ranked Kame and Bouterse first battled past third ranked Jamaicans, Lisanne Roofe and Tiomma Graham 17-21, 21-4, 21-0 (retired hurt in second set at 15-4) and  21-16, 21-17 in their second match, before they upstaged second ranked Cayman Islands pair, Chante Smith-Johnson and Lleann Powery,  21-13, 14-21, 15-11 and 21-11, 21-5 for a place in the title match.

In the other main draw quarterfinal contested earlier in the day, Barbadians, Mayers and Small won over US Virgin Islands' Dinaja Dowdy and Shanice James  21-9, 21-17 and 21-16, 21-17, ahead of their meeting with T&T, which the host swept.

In the final, carded for Thursday, the winner between T&T and Suriname will advance directly to the Youth Olympics in Nanjing, while the loser will still have a chance to qualify for the Youth Olympics.

However, it  will first need to advance through a Second Round of NORCECA Zonal qualifiers at a later date along with the winners of the losers draw.

On Thursday in the losers, draw semifinals, Jamaica faces Barbados and US Virgin Islands meet Cayman Islands with the winners to meet in the losers' final.