Coaches in St Croix ready to serve off

ST CROIX, Virgin Islands, May 24, 2013 – The battle for two spots in the third and final stage of the NORCECA qualifiers towards the 2014 FIVB Women’s World Championship in Italy is set to kick off at the Women’s Group K in St Croix on Saturday.

The coaches of British Virgin Islands, El Salvador, St Vincent & Grenadines and hosts U.S. Virgin Islands all are confident about their teams’ chances of advancing to the next round as they commented following the preliminary enquiry performed by the NORCECA Control Committee on Friday evening.

Willis Potter, the coach of BVI, said his squad has been working very hard and he expects to make it into the next phase.

“Our goal us to compete at a high level and take the gold medal,” Potter said. “We have worked hard and we expect to do well and advance to the next round.”

Shaun Young, coach of St Vincent and Grenadines, said he is bringing a very young team who needs to get the experience.

“My team is very young and I’m going to use this competition to expose them to a high level of volleyball,” Young said. “I expect them to rise to the occasion and do well.”

Ricardo Rivera, the assistant coach of El Salvador, said his team has been practicing together since last December which could be a factor to their favor.

“We will try our best and our team has a lot of illusions,” Rivera said. “We finished fourth at the Central American Games because of our inexperience. But we have been working hard and expect to do well here.”

Lucille Hobson, who doubles up as coach and president of U.S. National Federation, is pretty convinced her team will play for the gold medal.

“My team’s goal is to take the gold medal,” she said. “The problem is that all the teams I know are here for the same. We wish all of them good luck on the road to first place. But our main focus is to win and go to the next round in 2014”.