Host Canada enjoys early victory in Edmonton at the Challenge Cup

MAY 17, Edmonton, CANADA: Canada won its first match of the NORCECA Women’s Challenge Cup over Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 (25-12, 25-16, 25-22).

Canada looked more organized than the Caribbean nation, particularly in the first two sets. Alexa Gray of Calgary, Alberta, was a top scorer for the home country with 15 points. 

For Trinidad, Darlene Ramdin and Thompson Channon both contributed 11 points.

Marcello Abbondanza, coach of Team Canada: “It was an important victory for us to win 3-0.   I am a little bit disappointed about the third set, we lost our attention a bit and Trinidad had more chances.  But now we have to think about the next match and playing Cuba.”

Kyla Richey, captain of Team Canada.  “I always am happy with our effort, but with this squad I only think we’ve have five or six days together competing, so there was a little bit of nerves.  I think to get this first match out of the way, there were some good things, but still a lot to work on.

I love playing at home and we need to have more exposure to our youth players. I think for them to see what it means to play for your country is priceless.  The more competition we can have on home soil is better for us and for the young players coming up.”

Francisco Cruz, head coach of Trinidad & Tobago

“The game was acceptable. We lost two players who are unable to play, and that is a problem within the organization. Finally, in the last set they started to come together and for me, everything was good. We have some new players, and I don’t do any substitutions because we have eight experienced players and the rest are young. Out of the eight, two aren’t playing. This is the problem. Some players played today in another position. I suppose, because this is the first match, that in the second match they will play better.”

Renele Forde, captain of Trinidad & Tobago

“We’ve all been playing abroad and we haven’t been able to practice together. I’m okay with the result in terms of how we fought and how we tried to compete. I’m sure Canada has been practicing for some time together, and they have everything they need, which is a difference between our team and them. They played a great match and we just tried to compete as well as possible, almost as if it was practice for us because we have a long schedule ahead of us in terms of tournaments for the year and this is basically for the teams to get together and mesh and play together.”

Tournament note: a change in the tournament was announced by NORCECA due to the Costa Rican team withdrawing because of travel issues.

The withdrawal means the schedule will now be as follows (Mountain Time):

May 18

NCA vs CUB (16:00)

May 19

CUB vs PUR (16:00)

CAN vs TTO (19:00)

May 20

Bronze match (16:00)

Gold match (19:00)

(bronze and gold medal matches)