By VINO

The Virgin Islands (VI) U23 Women’s Volleyball team remained winless after suffering a 3-0 loss to St Vincent and the Grenadines in the Bronze Medal match on Sunday August 14, 2016 at the inaugural Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association (ECVA) Under-23 Women’s Tournament, at the Vide Boutielle Secondary School’s court in St Lucia.

St Vincent and the Grenadines took the bronze medal by dispensing of the Virgin Islands 3-0 (25-9, 25-18, 25-22), with Alicia Glasgow the top scorer for the third successive time, as she tallied 16 points and Shernell Browne, an Outside Hitter, registered 10 points.

Shoniqua Fahie, an Outside Hitter was the VI’s leading scorer with 6 points.

St Vincent and the Grenadines led in spikes, 21-14, while topping in service aces 18-5.

Head coach, Stephen, Payne said the tournament was a good gauge of what is needed in the territory to become more competitive. “What this tournament has taught us is that our development programme back home must be more sustained, instead of just preparing for tournaments.”

Payne believes that his players should be better served from their participation in the tournament and once they stay with the sport, they would improve in all facets.

In their first game the VI  battled on the court for an hour and forty minutes in a slow paced duel also against St Vincent and the Grenadines, who eventually triumphed 3-1, (25-22, 25-23, 25- 23, 25-16).

St Vincent and the Grenadines owed their win to the scoring of Outside Hitter Shernell Browne who had a game high 17 points.

For the VI, Daijha Matthews had 9 points, to be her team’s lead scorer.

On the team analysis, St Vincent and the Grenadines outstripped their opponents 25-17 in spikes.

VI Coach Stephen Payne and team captain, Daija Matthews, apportioned fatigue and unforced errors for their loss. Matthews though was satisfied with the serves, stating, “We were very good on our serve”.

She and Payne concurred that they were generally satisfied with the output of the team and vouched improvement when they met St Lucia in their next fixture.

However, S Lucia eased to a win and made it two from two, running out 3-0 winners (25-13, 25-19, 25-18), with little resistance from the VI.

St Lucia’s Yosherbel Emmanuel, a Middle Blocker and Outside Hitter- Kerin Neptune, both counted 12 points each, whilst for the VI, the top scorer was Akeela Skeete with 7 points.

Payne was bemused at his team’s performance. “I cannot explain why we played that way… They strayed away from the instructions, but all is not lost, we have Antigua and Barbuda next, and hopefully we will see a turnaround in our performance,” Payne lamented.

Unfortunately in that match up, Antigua and Barbuda needed little time and did not have to exert much energy to totally outclass the VI, 3-0,  25-7, 25-9, 25-15), leaving the girls winless from their three matches.