Suriname Inches Closer to Second Round

SANTA CRUZ, Aruba, November 27, 2016: Suriname moved withing touching distance of advancing to the second round of the CAZOVA qualifiers to the 2018 FIVB Women’s World Volleyball Championship.

In the third match of the round-robin tournament, the 4th ranked Suriname defeated a determined Martinique outfit 25-17, 25-22, 25-19. After also beating Haiti the day before, Suriname probably already has more than one foot in the door to the second round in Jamaica, with Aruba still to be played in the final match.

Yesterday’s opener pitted the highest and lowest ranked teams in the competition, but today's match was far from one-sided, as the 12^th ranked Surinamese had to battled all the way in the 80-minute affair. After trailing 9-16, Martinique went on a 10-3 run in the second set to cause some anxious moments for the Surinamese down the homestretch.

Martinique actually only earned their first lead at 3-2 in third set and the teams then battled point for point until the favourites, Suriname, changed gears at 13-14 down to win 12 of the last 17.

The serve was certainly not up to par for Martinique and both assistant coach Roberto Dinal and captain Soraya Yazza expressed their disappointment regarding the amount of service errors they committed. However Yazza stated, “we should be better prepared and should play better against Haiti.”

Martinique had beaten the 10^th-ranked Arubans last night and would more than likely advance with a victory over No. 7 Haiti in the first match tonight.

 “I’m very happy and satisfied with the performance of the team; our goal is to win the tournament and it all depends on the last game (against Aruba),” said Suriname coach Eric Aikman. Suriname's captain, Cheryl Brunings, chimed in, “we did everything we planned today.”  

The second round of the CAZOVA qualifiers is scheduled to take place in Jamaica in July 2017, while the next edition of the Women’s World Championship will take place in Japan and this Confederation (NORCECA) will have six qualifiers as well as defending champions United States.