THE teams will play twice today when the CAZOVA (Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association) Youth Girls’ Championships continues today at Sentro Deportivo Korsou, Curacao.
Action gets going at 9 a.m. with defending champions Trinidad and Tobago opposing Curacao and this contest will be followed by the clash between Bonaire and Barbados.
The night session starts with the T&T/Bonaire encounter at six o’clock and the busiest of the four-day tournament will conclude with Barbados tackling Curacao in the final match of the round-robin phase.
The tournament served off after press time last night with a double-header featuring Barbados against T&T and Bonaire versus Curacao.
The T&T girls have won all three editions of the Under-18 tournament, but coach Idalmis Gato Moya believes that it’s far from a foregone conclusion that the domination will continue.
The Cuban, who was a member of the team in 1992, 1996 and 2000 when her country became the only one to ever complete a hat-trick of volleyball gold medals in the Olympic Games, pointed out that there is potential in the squad, but just two of the players (skipper Nicolette De Mille and Jordyn Ali) have experience at this level.
However T&T and hosts Curacao were the most impressive during a practice session on Wednesday night.
Curacao captured the gold medal in the boys’ edition of this tournament at home in’10 and picked up the silver in the following edition two years later, but this is their first outing in the girls event.
Bonaire has played in neither, while Barbados trailed a field of three and of four in their two appearances.
The winner of the round-robin phase will tackle the fourth-placed team in tomorrow’s first semifinal at 5 p.m. and two hours later the second and third-placed team clash for the other place in Sunday’s gold-medal encounter.
This match is scheduled for 6 p.m., two hours after the bronze-medal match.