Barbados beats Saint Vincent for fifth place at U21 Men's

GATINEAU, Canada, July 9, 2016 – Barbados secured fifth place in the U21 NORCECA Men's Continental Championship by defeating the spirited Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 3-1 (25-17, 26-24, 23-25, 25-18).

Carlos Cyrus contributed 14 points (11 kills from 29 attacks, plus three aces) toward helping Barbados finish their experience at Centre Sportif de Gatineau positively. Ashan Jordan added 12 points (including 11 kills from 25 attacks) after drawing in to replace captain Andriy Stapleton, who suffered a significant left knee injury on Friday. Ronaldo Franklyn was the match's top shot with 17 points (16-of-44 on attacks) for Saint Vincent while his cousin, Asmond Franklyn, tallied 12 (11-of-23 on attacks).

After the teams traded two-point wins in the second and third, Barbados corrected their form by scoring 15 of the last 23 points in the fourth. Barbados converted 38-of-105 attacks and Saint Vincent converted 37-of-104, but the victors had a 10-2 edge on aces and allowed 14 fewer points on errors (35 to 49).

“I'm glad we finished the tournament with a win and finished on a high,” Barbados match captain Adam Niles said. “I think the guys played well this game despite the rough start to the tournament.”

Barbados arrived in Canada's national capital region with designs on a semi-final berth. Stapleton, who was on crutches on Saturday, went down during the opening set of their 3-1 quarter-final loss against Guatemala.

“Any time you get a chance to play a tournament at this level, you can only get better,” Barbados coach John Stuart said “It's a great experience. We have three players [Brandon Callender, Kadeem Morris and Jherard Morris-Sealy] born in 1999 who will be young enough to play again in the championship of the Caribbean.”

Saint Vincent won a set for the first time in three matches. In the second set, they were down 16-10 at the second technical timeout and rallied back. There were were eight consecutive ties from 17-17 through 24-24 before Barbados converted on their second set point.

“My team gave it their all, but we needed a little more,” Ronaldo Franklyn said. “The way that we played was exceptional. I think today gave us reason to understand how tough we have to push to gain a point in the close matches.”

Saint Vincent was aggressive at the net, coming away with a 10-2 edge in points via blocks. Five came from Marcus Thomas.

“As you can see, they are starting to get confidence in this competition,” Saint Vincent coach Vance Andrews said. “It's taken a while to get to that level. The team is young and this will be a good experience. Ronaldo [Franklyn] played outstanding today.”

Saint Vincent and Trinidad and Tobago will play in the sixth-place classification game at 4 p.m. Sunday, prior to the bronze-medal and gold-medal games.