Dominica Shoots down Antigua to meet St. Lucia in ECVA Finals

ST JOHNS, Antigua, December 6, 2014 - Dominica shocked their opponents and silenced the boisterous home fans when they beat Antigua 3-1 (25-19, 23-25, 25-22 and 27-25) and in doing so earned the right to play in the finals of the ECVA Senior Men Championship.

Antigua & Barbuda won two of the three scoring categories with a 60 -53 advantage in kills and a 10 to 9 lead in blocks. On the other hand Dominica led in serves 5-0.

The meaningful difference came when Antigua gave up 33 points to Dominica in errors a factor they would later lament.

Dominica had a more varied attack as four players got double figures. Veteran David Toussaint playing as an Outside Hitter led with 18. Lincoln Reviere another Outside Hitter contributed 15. The two middle blockers in Joseph Ronnel and Florent Yahn chipped in with 11 and 10 respectively.

On the other hand Antigua & Barbuda relied heavily on their Outside Hitters in Jamarie James with 27 points and Collin Thomas with 24. No one else got into double figures but James and Thomas recorded 48 kills between them.

Ray Robinson captain of the Dominica team was ecstatic after the victory “We did it! We did it! I told you so, we shot them down, we shut them out he screamed in excitement. Our veteran player had an excellent game and our middle blockers confused them as they could not tell which of them we were using and as a result they got  some open shots”, he noted.

Winning Coach Jeffrey Edmund averred that the main key to victory was resilience. We kept coming back even when things were down. We kept on fighting and fighting and did not get down when we were behind. Progressively we got better and with self-belief we pulled through against all odds”, he said.

On the losing side coach Fitzroy Benjamin pointed to the areas of weakness in their game. “We did not serve well and our reception of serve was poor on the night added to that our blocking let us down. We needed those to be working smoothly in order to win”, he said.

Captain Xavier Roberts of Antigua was close to tears. “I am just feeling down, I am devastated we are at home and lost in the semifinals!! I just feel awful”, he wailed.