St. Lucia overpowers Dominica as ECVA Men opens

ST. JOHNS, Antigua, December 4, 2014 - St. Lucia got the better of arch rivals Dominica in straights sets (25-17, 25-20, 29-27) in the opening encounter of the Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association Senior Men Championship.

Joseph Clercent points matched the praise he got as he was by far the highest scorer on the night with 23 points made up of 19 spikes and 2 each in the blocking and service departments. For team Dominica Middle Blocker Florent Yahn had 13 points to lead his team.

St. Lucia had the edge in spikes 39 -34 and earned 11 blocks to Dominica’s 4 while the service department was dead even at 6 each.

Dutch St. Maarten is the other team in group A while Antigua, St. Vincent and French St. Martin are in Group B of the six team competition.

Captain of the Dominica team Ray Robinson was humble in defeat admitting that St. Lucia experienced players outmatched them on the night. “St. Lucia had two very good experienced players who dominated various aspects of the game particularly service and attack. Jo (Joseph Clercent) was outstanding tonight but I thought our team played well to neutralize them somewhat in the later sets” he noted.

Captain of the St. Lucia team Joseph Clercent marked down St. Lucia’s fading in the second and third sets to youthful exuberance. “We have a very young team and even in the face of some consistent errors we have to encourage them to play just one point at a time. However they rallied well enough to give us that all important first victory and now we are in a good position to top the group”, he intimated.