By Shammi Kowlessar

After fielding just one pair in each of the first two tournaments in this year’s NORCECA (North, Central America and the Caribbean) Beach Volleyball Tour, Trinidad and Tobago will be represented by as many as six teams from today when the third leg serves off in Guatemala.

Four of the six—LaTeisha Joseph/Kinesha Marshall, Nikesha Matthew/Rachel Noel, Akim Bushe/Brandon Legall, and Tevin Joseph/Tarandath Deodath—are either under-21 or under-23 outfits preparing for World Championship events.

The Under-23 World Championships will take place from June 6 to 9 in Poland, while the Under-21 World Championships will be staged in Croatia from June 20 to 23.

Also flying the red, white and black this weekend are Daneil Williams and Simon Blake, and Elki Philip and Apphia Glasgow.

Blake and Williams are the only players to represent the country in NORCECA competition this season, and the duo finished seventh three weeks ago in Dominican Republic, the weekend after they had placed 11th in the opening leg in the Cayman Islands.

Williams and his former partner, Fabian Whitfield are in fact the only players from this country to ever capture a NORCECA medal, and they picked up that bronze in the Trinidad leg of last year’s circuit, at the end of October.

Philip has come close twice, as she and Ayana Dyette were fourth in St Lucia in the middle of October, two and a half years after she and Nancy Joseph had also just missed the podium in the Dominican Republic.

Joseph and Pauline Woodroffe won the women’s qualifying tournament to play in the Cayman Islands, but were forced to miss it, as well as the one in the Dominican Republic because the T&T Volleyball Federation (TTVF) was only able to pay for one pair. They will have to wait a little longer to make their 2013 debut as Woodroffe recently sprained her ankle.

Glasgow made her NORCECA debut at home last year, and will be combining with Philip for the first time.

LaTeisha Joseph was also introduced to NORCECA competition in Toco at the end of October, and after she and Shenelle Gordon placed a very creditable sixth, they also competed in the final stage, two weekends later, in Aruba.

Legall is a former indoor star, who was voted Best Spiker and Best Scorer a few years ago at a Caribbean Junior Championships, right after being the Best Scorer and Best Server at the Pan American Junior Cup.

Players from 15 countries—Bahamas, Canada, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, T&T, United States, United States Virgin Islands and Guatemala—will compete until Sunday

There will then be a seven-week break, before the fifth leg is staged in Mexico from June 7.

The 11th of the 14-leg series is scheduled for Trinidad in mid-November.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sports/Six-TT-pairs-for-NORCECA-tourney-203704201.html