Antigua & Barbuda Runs over French St. Martin to take Bronze

ST JOHNS, Antigua, December 7, 2014 - Antigua and Barbuda totally dominated the proceedings  against French St. Martin beating them in straight sets- 25-19, 25-8 and 25-16 to win the bronze medal of the ECVA senior men championship.

It took Antigua & Barbuda took a little over an hour (63 minutes) to put away their listless opponents with the second game taking a mere 17 minutes. They won all the scoring duels with 33 to 24 in spikes, 12 to 4 in blocks and 9 to 1 in the service category.

Antigua & Barbuda used the opportunity to use some new players in the rotation but they were still led by outside hitter Jamarie James with 16 points, 7 of them coming from aces. He got support from fellow outside hitter Collin Thomas who had 13 points, inclusive of 11 kills.

On the losing side Captain Paul Quellery’s 11 points was the best effort among several other low scores.

It was obvious that French St. Martin was missing two key players who both got injured during the tournament and the remaining charges appeared deflated and thus could not carry the fight.

Antigua’s Coach Fitzroy Benjamin had a heavy heart. Our serves were very effective tonight, the passing was good and the setters worked hard to get decisive offense but this is the bronze medal game, we should have been in the finals”, he said.

Captain Xavier Roberts had a similar view and made a simple comment. “Yea we feel good that we won but we played the wrong game”, he remarked.

French St Martin’s Captain Paul Quellery was at a loss for words. “I don’t know what happened out there but we did not come out fighting like we did last night against St. Lucia. Yes a couple of key guys were missing but the other guys were expected to step up but we just submitted”, he said.

Coach Thierry Stephen concurred. It seems to me that some of the guys were not conscious of the fact that we had the opportunity to play for a position on the podium. It appears as if they picked who they wanted to fight, thus lack the motivation and urgency required for this game. This is something that will have to be addressed on our return home”, he said.