Haiti punishes under strength Cayman Islands

PETION-VILLE, Haiti, July 9, 2016 - Host Haiti showed little mercy on a veteran and under strength Cayman Islands and stormed to an easy 3-0 win in their Group C match of the new qualification process to the 2017 Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) Championships to be held in Trinidad and Tobago.

Playing in the feature match of the opening night double-header at the Gymnasium Vincent “Tek Kale” Port-au-Prince, Haiti backed by a vocal home crowd won in their first ever match on home soil at any age level in CAZOVA or NORCECA competitions.

It was a well balanced attack for the CAZOVA seventh ranked Haitians that did the trick with Fritz Mabou scoring a match-high 16 points, punctuated with 12 spikes and three blocks while captain, Kempes Vilmot contributed 12, laced with nine spikes, Senel Dupuy had ten and Gasner Raymond had seven.

Captain Keeble Knight led his team of eight players with nine points, all on spikes while Olney Thompson chipped in with eighth and Martin Bodden, six as in the loss for the Cayman Islands.

Overall, Haiti was a class above Cayman Islands and it proved that way in the statistics with Haiti winning 35-24 on spikes, 9-0 on blocks and 7-0 on service aces, while also committing less errors, 19 to 24.

Speaking after the loss Knight opted to be positive and said he saw improvement in their performance as the match went on.

“We know Haiti is a much younger and athletic team than us so we set ourselves targets for other matches to come.”

Mark Ray, coach of Cayman Islands added, “We expected it to be tough battle for us against a top team like Haiti, but we will learn from this defeat and intend to get better as we go forward.”

Vilmot, said his team was mentally prepared to do well in front of its home crowd.

“We are playing at home and wanted to do well for our people and got the win, which was a good preparation for other tougher matches to come.”

Yves Larrieux, Haiti’s coach added, “It was a good match for us going forward. We know we have a very good game, but it was also very nice to see that the guys were able to apply everything that we did in training.”

Sunday in the first session, Curacao goes after its second win when it faces Cayman Islands from 9am while US Virgin Islands meet host Haiti from 11am, and in the third and final session from 5pm, USVI faces Cayman Islands followed by Curacao and Haiti from 7pm.