PHILLIPSBURG, St. Maarten October 15, 2022.- It was heart break for the home fans when they witnessed their home team (St. Maarten) lose 3-1 (25-15, 25-19, 17-25 and 25-23) to BVI to reach the finals of the ECVA Women’s Senior Championship.
The fans were hoping for a five setter after their team was down 2-0 and clawed their way back to win the third. They were even more optimistic when in the fourth set they slashed a big BVI lead to just 1 when BVI had set point. BVI persevered and won the point at the net that hushed the crowd.
Once again Middle Blocker Shoranda Pickering from the BVI garnered the game high points-19, made up of 12 kills and 5 aces along with 2 blocks. She got some help from Captain Alexander with 9 points.
St. Marten’s charge was led by captain Meulens who grabbed 10 points. Meanwhile BVI benefitted from a high error count- 51(or 55%) while donating 35. The rest of the team scoresheet was even with serves tied at 10 blocks going the way of BVI 7-4 and while St. Maarten had the edge in kills 32 to 25.
Antigua and St. Lucia will play to decide the other finalist.
Coach of the BVI team Stephen Payne gave his assessment of what happed, “we went away from the game plan somewhat because of some miscommunication. However a win is a win and we are on our way to the finals. We came here and played game by game and point by point and we won’t move away from that strategy”.
His captain Henrietta Alexander was gleeful, “when we came here, we were ranked 7th in the ECVA with an underdog label. We have not competed for several years and so some people counted us out. However, we came here to upset some people and that´s exactly what we did, now we will be playing for gold”.
Coach Dimitri Beauperthuy was upbeat despite the loss, “tonight we came up short, but the girls poured in a tremendous effort after a slow start. I feel proud to know that we gave everything we had, and the opponents just got the better of us on the day”.
Captain of the home team Akila Meulens enjoyed the experience, “it was exciting as we dug a hole, but we were coming out of it. If we had that same energy from the start, things might have been different but that´s behind us now and all we can do is to refocus to try to win the bronze, which is exactly what’s on my mind now”.
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