The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas men’s national volleyball team was one of the major sporting storylines in 2013 as they gained regional notoriety and accomplished a rare feat for the Bahamas – the qualification of a team sport at the Central American and Caribbean Games.

The Bahamas is slated to compete in the 22nd CAC Games in Veracruz, Mexico, November 15-30.

Joseph Smith, vice president of the Bahamas Volleyball Federation, said the qualification was the end result of a very successful year which saw the Bahamas become one of the top 40 teams in the world.

“It has been a long time coming and we have been working tediously at this. I am very pleased with where we are in the sport of volleyball at this time and this is the first time in a very long time that a team sport in the Bahamas has qualified for the CAC Games. I think the last one was softball and that was some years ago. We haven’t been at that level since the early 1980s so it has been a long time,” he said.

“We knew by 2012-2013 we had a team that had an opportunity to be the best in the Caribbean. We are now ranked No.1 among English-speaking countries in the Caribbean and No. 7 in the NORCECA region and No. 38 in the world.”

The team delivered a gold-medal performance in Group A of the NORCECA 2014 FIVB Men’s World Championship qualifier in Willemstad, Curacao and also won gold at the Senior Caribbean Volleyball Championships in St Croix US Virgin Islands.

The team, or some variation, is scheduled to compete in several tournaments prior to the CAC Games, including a regional qualifier in May and their defence of the Caribbean Volleyball Championship title in Trinidad and Tobago in July.

“Those events should get us on the way to CAC in Mexico where we are definitely looking to medal,” Smith said. “Funding will be necessary for these trips and it is always something we have to deal with, but thanks to the BOC and us qualifying for some events we have been able to garner some of the help that we need. We also want corporate Bahamas to come on board to really help this team excel, because without sponsorship you cannot attend these tournaments that you need to go to to sharpen your skills and keep abreast of the competition.”

While prior commitments may prevent the team from being at full strength for much of the year, Smith said the best team would be assembled for the CAC Games.

“We do have a vibrant junior programme and some of the guys that have come from that programme are not juniors anymore. So really the final 12 for the CAC will be very challenging and is not going to be an easy team to make. The team may vary through different events that we go to, not much, but we do have players like Byron Ferguson - who is a pro athlete and we have to communicate with his club to find out when his services will be available to us and others like Shanari Hepburn are in school so we have to check whether the tournaments will infringe upon the time when he would have to be in school. But we do have enough athletes here at home who can fill some of the roles that we will need to. For the CAC team in November we want the best squad we can assemble.”

BOC president Wellington Miller said the progress of the sport is a model for others in the country to follow.

“We always want a team sport to qualify and go with us because team sports, if they are not on the international scene, they tend to drop off the radar. I would like to give credit to the players, the president and the executives of the volleyball federation who went at it with guts last year to qualify. When I look at the ratings, the men’s team is rated among the top 40 in the world and the women are in the top 50. So when you look at that you can see the progress they have made,” he said.

“I see volleyball on the move because they have done very well in all the regional tournaments they were entered in. We expect great things from them and that is one of the sports that we are keeping our eyes on in the future and we hope they influence other team sports in the country.”