St. Lucia reach finals with narrow win over Antigua & Barbuda

ST JOHNS, Antigua, August 19, 2018 –St. Lucia and Antigua engaged in what was called the most competitive match in the ECVA Senior Female Competition to date. When the dust settled it was St. Lucia by a neck in a gripping 5 setter – 25-23, 23-25, 25 -18, 19 -25 and 15-11.

St. Lucia showed resilience as the early games were typified by Antigua making runs and St. Lucia roaring back to level then go ahead.

The game gave room to two key players going head to head. Mali Peters Middle Blocker of Antigua was everywhere she was spiking (14 points) blocking (5 points) and to top that off she had 4 Aces. In the end she had a game high 23 points. St. Lucia’s key player – Lisa Casimie responded with 21 points all of them from powerful Spikes as she had a woeful time at the service line with several service errors.

St. Lucia’s edge came from Outside Hitter Kerin Neptune who had 19 points and an invaluable contribution of 12 points from Yoshebel Emmanuel.

When Coach Challery slowed his heart rate enough for an interview he commented on the individual contributions which helped his cause. “Neptune is one of our more consistent players. Casimie is our power hitter so when they tried to shut down Casimie we went to Neptune and got some valuable points. I must admit however that they really pushed us, not that we were not expecting it as we saw them play and knew what they were capable of. I just think that we were the fitter team and had a little more energy when it mattered most”, he recalled.

Coach Dan Girleanu of Antigua rued missed opportunities. “It was a good game a close game one where I thought we could have won. We led 23 - 18 in the first game and ended up losing. However they fought hard but were not able to finish strongly. The results shows that we really had some close teams and St. Lucia got the better of us today”, he stated.

The scoresheet backed up Girleanu’s claims of closeness – Spikes 49 -47 in favour of St. Lucia. Blocks- 9 to 9 and Aces 5 to 4 in favour of Antigua/ Barbuda.

The result meant that St. Lucia will meet St. Martin in the finals while Antigua tangles with Grenada in the bronze medal decider.