The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Volleyball Federation women’s national team joined the men in advancing to the second round of the AZOVA qualifying series for the 2018 FIVB World Volleyball Championships.

After watching the men book their ticket in Martinique last month to head to Trinidad & Tobago for the next round next year, the women clinched their berth for the second round in Jamaica in July.

The women did it by wrapping up their three-game series on Sunday at the Clifton Hunter High School with a 25-16, 25-10, 25-11 win over Bonaire to finish in second place at 2-1. The team lost their opener 25-21, 25-11, 26-24 to top finisher Guadeloupe, but bounced back to pull off a 25-10, 25-12, 25-14 win over the Cayman Islands.

Team captain Kelsie Johnson, who posted 10 points behind Melinda Bastian’s leading 18 and Brittany Bonamy’s 11, said the team performed as expected with one or two downfalls.

“We knew Guadeloupe would be our biggest competitors going into the tournament because they beat us the last CVC, so they were ranked higher than us,” Johnson told The Tribune of the Bahamas’ sixth ranking behind Guadeloup at No.5.

“However, I feel as if we were able to play them in the last game, we would have beaten them. We adjusted very well after the second set when we played them, but unfortunately, we had two communication breakdowns that caused us the first set and after leading in the second set, we had a bad call from the referees in our opinion that really broke our momentum.”

Johnson, however, said the goal was to advance to the next level and she was happy that they were able to accomplish that feat.

Although she is leaning towards retirement, Johnson said she was delighted to have returned to help the team. In the process, she was named the co best middle blocker with Sandra Ramier from Guadeloupe.

Additionally, Bastian and Bonamy were named the best outside spikers.

Other members of the team, coached by Jason Saunders with Margaret Albury as the manager, were Davia Moss, Shantia Simon, JeNae Saunders, Eugunie Adderley, Avoni Seymour, Courtney Stevens, Latavia Braynen and Sari Albury.  Sixteen-year-old Braynen and Albury, 15, are both high school athletes making their national team debut.

Saunders said based on what he had to work with, he thought the team came together at the right time.

“When you consider the fact that we were challenged in getting some of the younger players out, we asked three players to come out of retirement - Kelsie Johnson, Edricka McPhee-Simon and Davia Moss - they performed magnificently. I was very proud of them.”

With just one practice on Saturday before they got into competition, Saunders said the team didn’t get the right mixture in their line-up until after they played the top ranked Guadelouple in the opener.

“We had one bad set and that was in the second set against Guadeloupe,” Saunders said. “We should have won the first and second set against them.

“But we didn’t get our chemistry together until late in the tourament. But if we had to play Guadeloupe today, we would beat them.”

Despite losing their only game to Guadeloupe and not having all the players he had anticipated, Saunders said they got the job done.

“Now we have moved on to the second round of qualifying and so hopefully all of the younger girls will come out and work their butts off so that we can field the best team possible,” Saunders projected.

Guadeloupe and the Bahamas secured the top two spots in the pool, qualifying to compete in Pool E of the CAZOVA Championship in Trinidad & Tobago next year alongside automatic qualifiers Barbados, Group C winners Haiti and the second placed team from the third and final Round One Pool B qualifiers which is scheduled to take place in Suriname October 28-31, involving the host country, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, and Turks & Caicos.

The winner of the Aruba and Martinique match gets second in Pool A and joins top ranked nation and two-time reigning CAZOVA champions Trinidad & Tobago, Curacao and the runner-up from Pool C.

The eight-team final with the top two teams overall will again qualify to the next round of FIVB World Championship qualification while crowning the eventual champions of CAZOVA.

At the NORCECA Continental, the CAZOVA duo will join the USA, Cuba, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico along with two from Central America and two from the Eastern Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (ECVA) in the top-12 qualification process to determine the eventual qualifiers to the World Championships.

The Bahamas men, on the other hand, clinched the top spot in the pool so it qualified to compete in Pool E of the CAZOVA Championship in Trinidad & Tobago next year alongside automatic qualifiers Barbados, Group C winners Haiti and the second placed team from the third and final Round One Pool B qualifiers, which is scheduled to take place in Suriname October 28-31, involving the host country, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, and Turks & Caicos.

The winner of the Aruba and Martinique match gets second in Pool A and joins top ranked nation and two-time reigning CAZOVA champions Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao and the runner-up from Pool C.

The eight-team final with the top two teams overall will again qualify to the next round of FIVB World Championship qualification while crowning the eventual champions of CAZOVA.

At the NORCECA Continental, the CAZOVA duo will join the USA, Cuba, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico along with two from Central America and two from the Eastern Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (ECVA) in the top-12 qualification process to determine the eventual qualifiers to the World Championships.