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PHILLIPSBURG, St. Maarten, July 26, 2015- Wild celebrations
broke out among players, coaches and a handful of supporters
when St. Vincent and the Grenadines secured the last point in a
four-set victory (20-25, 25-11, 25 -17 and 25-23) over the
defending champs St. Lucia.
St. Vincent had to show real fortitude to comeback from a set
down with the momentum going St. Lucia’s way to take a lopsided
victory in the second set. In the fourth set they made up ground
on some sizeable leads to secure their first every championship
at this level.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines relied heavily on Outside Hitter
Ronaldo Franklyn to carry their attack. He did so by topping all
scorers with 17 points. This comprised 13 kills and 2 blocks as
well as 2 points from the service line. Middle Blocker Marcus
Thomas scored 15 points to be the other main contributor to the
score.
For St. Lucia’s Middle Blocker Anton Thomas was the one who
ended with the most points on that side tallying 9 from his
efforts at blocking and serving.
Cassius Franklyn coach of St. Vincent and the Grenadines: “We
are happy, in fact extremely happy to be taking back home this
trophy. Our guys were confident going into the game but St.
Lucia threw some tactical changes and this cost us the first
game. However we were able to pick up our pace and executed
according to plan. It must be noted too that the setter made
some excellent adjustments to run the team, him along with the
captain really brought back some “vibes” on the court and this
translated to positive play and less argument.
Germain Elvin from St. Lucia: This is a new feeling for us
because we usually retain the junior championship. However we
are not seeing it as a total defeat but instead acceptance that
there is another competitor in the pool. During the game we
tried at first to slow down the pace as we realize that they
were more accustom to a faster pace game. It worked for a while
but they got the better of us in the second set. We picked up
momentum again in the 4th set but during that game we
made at error at the 22 -23 all and the final point that they
got was a defensive error. I still think that we have the
capability to win but it is just that we made some decisions
that cost us the 4th game had that not being the case
we probably would have taken them in 5”, he surmised.
The final positions in the ECVA Junior Male are: 1. St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, 2.
St. Lucia, 3. St. Maarten, 4. Dominica, 5. Grenada, 6.
Antigua, 7. Anguilla. |
