St. Lucia edges St. Vincent opening ECVA U21 Championship

ST JOHNS, Antigua, August 29, 2019-  In a match reminiscent of a final, St. Lucia came from 2 games down to defeat St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Team SVG) in 5 sets (18 -25, 23 -25, 25 - 22, 25- 22 and 15 -11) in the opening encounter of the ECVA male U21 championship

Team SVG enjoyed the advantage in the early games with almost everything going their way. In fact they looked like a superior team. St. Lucia made a few adjustments to which SVG did not respond. St. Lucia then picked up momentum and never look back

At the end of the game coach Terry Verdant spoke about these adjustments. “I changed the order by switching my front and back court, additionally I made an important change with the middle blocker. Apart from that most of our guys started out very nervously. My task was mainly to calm them down and play the game that they were coached to play.  Once the nervousness wore off they got into their own”, he beamed.

Coach of Team SVG Vance Andrews admitted that St. Lucia played a very good game.  “I thought that we had the game but the team lost focus after winning the first two sets and once St. Lucia picked up momentum it was very difficult to stop them. Moreover we made far too many errors. However If we meet them again I promise you it will be a very different game”, he surmised.

A close look at the scoresheet supported the claims that both teams were nervous and made far too many errors. In fact 45 % of the points garnered by St. Lucia was through Team SVG errors. St. Lucia on the other hand obliged likewise and contributed 52% of SVG overall points through errors of their own.

The top scorer of the game was St. Lucia’s outside hitter Florent Joshua with 19 points 18 of which came from spiking. He got good support from opposite Gaspard Noah with 18 points (13 Spikes and 4 Blocks). Team SVG was led by middle blocker in Delpesche Shadron with 13 points in a losing cause.

St. Lucia will meet Antigua Barbuda in the next match while St. Kitts/Nevis will take on Team SVG.