Final Results for WC Qualifier

At the end of the World Championship Qualifier, Belize managed to receive 3rd place award coming in behind St. Lucia who got 2nd and Curacao who got 1st. When it comes to individual awards, none can be gained alone. Below is a list of individual awards and the people who won them.

Best Scorer - Christine Anthony from Curacao
Best Spiker - Christine Anthony from Curacao
Best Blocker - Lianne Jamanika from Curacao
Best Server - Shantell Arnold from Belize
Best Digger - Durenne Rosalia from Curacao
Best Setter - Tanesha Encalada from Belize
Best Receiver - Neysa Hooi from Curacao
Best Libero - Esther Middleton from Belize

Looking at team Belize, our best scorers were: Tichele Solis; Shantell Arnold and Sherylee Thurton. Best spikers were: Tichele Solis, Sherylee Thurton and Shantell Arnold. Best blockers were: Zaire Garbutt and Shantell Arnold. Best servers were: Shantell Arnold, Sherylee Thurton and Tanesha Encalada. Best diggers were: Esther Middleton, Sherylee Thurton and Tichele Solis. Best Setters were: Tanesha Encalada and Analisa Habet. Best Receivers were: Sherylee Thurton, Tichele Solis and Esther Middleton. And we only have one Libero :-).

As you can see, St. Lucia clearly got away! But such is life, you live and you learn. Better luck next time team Belize. Here are some pictures.

INDIVIDUAL AWARD WINNERS

BELIZE'S AWARD WINNERS

TEAM BELIZE

Bronze Medal Match

Belize has won the bronze medal match against Antigua. I'm happy to say that we received 3 individual awards. Best setter was Tanesha Encalada, Best libero was Esther Middleton and Best Server was yours truely, Shantell Arnold. I will update the blog with pictures tomorrow. Gwen go bash right now!!!

Belize vs Curacao

It's somewhat a bittersweet moment for us today. We lost the game against Curacao in 3 sets and this means we don't get a chance to play for the gold medal. Scores were: 1st set: 11-25; 19-15 and 11-25. However, we do get a chance to play for 3rd place. We go up against Antigua again tonight at 6pm. Wish us all good luck. Also, there will be individual awards and Belize has been doing really well with serving and blocking so we might get someone up there.

CURACAO

Belize vs St. Lucia

Ok guys, I'm kinda sad that I don't have good news for you tonight. We lost in 4 sets against St. Lucia; however, we played really well. The scores were as follows: 1st set: 26-24; 18-25; 24-26 and 17-25. We hope to dominate against Curacao tomorrow. Sorry I haven't been uploading pictures; here is the team photo of Belize before our first practice and Team St. Lucia.

BELIZE

ST. LUCIA

Belize vs Antigua

It is with great pride for me to announce that Belize has won its first match of the World Championship Qualifier tournament. We defeated Antigua in 4 sets. First set, we started out with a bang! Don't know what happened in second set but we were a bit slow and didn't speed up in time. We did however gained back our momentum for the third set and it lasted until the end of the fourth set. The scores are as follows: 1st set: 25-11; 2nd set: 18-25; 3rd set: 25-18 and 4th set: 25-13. We play against St. Lucia this evening at 6pm. Wish us luck guys :-)

ANTIGUA

BELIZE

We've arrived safely in Curacao

Hey ya'll! Just informing you that we have arrived safely in Curacao yesterday, we had our first practice which went really well. On Saturday, we play our first game at 9:00am against Antigua. We play our second game at 6:00pm against St. Lucia. On Sunday, we play our third game against Curacao at 11:00am and then we should play our 4th game at 8pm for the gold medal. We look forward to having an interesting tournament.

Curacao, Here we come!

Ok my fellow followers, the time is here, the National Senior Female Volleyball Team will be travelling to Curacao on Wednesday for the 2nd round of World Championship Qualifier. We have been training hard ever since we returned from Costa Rica  and improving each workout so we stand a really good chance. Not sure if I said this before but we will be playing against Antigua, Curacao and St. Lucia. That's all for now, wish us luck! :-D

WC Qualification Tournament

The Belize Senior Female National Volleyball team resumed training 1 week after returning from Costa Rica as they are aiming to attend the Women's 2014 World Championship Qualification Tournament - Group J to be held in Curacao from May 9-12, 2013. We are a much stronger team now than we were in Costa Rica and we should be going up against teams just as strong. We are improving each practice, mostly dues to hard training and dedication from every single athlete. Belize will be going up against Antigua, Curacao and St. Lucia before advancing to finals. As we draw nearer to the tournament I shall be giving you more details. Until then, wish us all safe training (we already have injuries of which we hope will heal in time).

Final Result for CAG 2013

For those who don't know, CAG is short for Central American Games. Follow the links below to get full stats of the results of the games. In my world, Belize is what matters the most; hence, I will speak solely about our performance at the tournament. Belize received 4 individual awards. Jasmine Anderson from the female team received best libero and best defense. Karym Coleman and Radin Santos from the male team received best attacker and best libero respectively. The female team came very close for best server and best blocker and the males also came close for best server but didn't quite make it. Even though we only got those 4, I'm still proud of our performance! Top 3 scorers for the males in order of ranking were: Karym Coleman with 32 points, Elton Moore and Keith Castillo both with 21 points. Top 3 scorers for the females in order of ranking were: Tichele Solis and Shantell Arnold both with 25 points and Sherylee Young-Thurton with 22 points. Narrowing it down to player performance for Belize on the male team: Karym was the best attacker and blocker, Shane was the best server, Radin was the best digger and libero and Elton was the best setter. On the female team: Tichele was the blocker, I was the best server, Jasmine was the best digger, receiver and libero and Tanesha was the best setter. The male team according to the picture going from left to right starting at the back: Coach Wallace, Shane Gentle (3), Keith Castillo (7), Tarike Campbell (1), Elton Anderson (2), Marlon Salazar (13), Karym Coleman (11), Coach Humes, Radin Santos (8), Francis Usher (9), Jaleel Lino (6), Elton Moore (15) and Sheldon Arnold (17). The female team according to the picture going from left to right starting at the back: Coach Sharp, Tichele Solis (12), Zaire Garbutt (7), Marika Zuniga (11), Shantell Arnold (16), Sherylee Thurton (10), Analisa Habet (4), Precelia Hoare (3), Tanesha Encalada (13), Jasmine Anderson (1), Tisha Solis (15) and Maurissa Williams (2).

http://issuu.com/jusan/docs/bolet_n_no_7_juegos_americanos_san_jos__2013/1

http://issuu.com/jusan/docs/bolet_n_no_7_juegos_centroamericanos_san_jos__2013/1

 BELIZE SENIOR MALE NATIONAL TEAM 2013

BELIZE SENIOR FEMALE NATIONAL TEAM 2013

Honduras Vs Belize

Our final game to determine if we will move on to the semifinals. We played a really close game. It was either all or nothing at all and we all gave our all! It was a very emotional match because at the last Central American Games we defeated Honduras! Since then, they haven't gotten much better so it was a beatable game. However, they out hustled us and took the match (25-23; 25-17 and 25-20).

Belize Vs Nicaragua

Hey there my people, I'm sorry for such a late update but after the games on Tuesday and Yesterday, we went to support the male team and when we got back I was too tired to post anything.  Nicaragua is a team that has very good composition, they are used to practicing and playing with each other. From I started travelling with the National Team, Nicaragua has only changed about 4 of their players. Our team, on the other hand, lacked the experience needed to defeat this team. That notwithstanding, even though we lost in 3 straight sets, I'm proud of our performance as we improved each set. The final score was 25-13, 25-17 and 25-19. We look forward to meeting them again in May.

Panama Vs Belize

Hey there my people, in short, we lost our game but it was a battle. First set we were neck and neck and we could have won but we made a few crucial errors towards the end of that set to make a score of 25-21. Second set, the referees were blowing on everything! Half the points they got was due to the referee calling us for double contact. Hence the reason for the miserable score of 25-11 in that set. In the third set, it took a while for us to get into it and lost 25-16.  Please note that these are unofficial reports of scoring, I may be off by 1 or 2 points... Stick around and get updates about tomorrow's game... With that said, we play tomorrow at 2pm.

Safe Arrival!

Ok guys, this post is just to inform you that we have arrived safely in Costa Rica. We got here around 10:30pm, had dinner, team meeting and now I’m preparing to go to sleep. We have our first practice tomorrow morning at 9am so I won’t stay long. However, please note that the team is already in “Beast Mode” (term we used to signify how serious we are about winning) because of the treatment we are receiving. Apparently, Belize is the only team that doesn’t get to practice on the game court before our first game! They had us scheduled to practice on it today knowing full well that we would not be arriving here until late in the night. Now how much sense does that make? They are taking us for fools! So we are upset about that but we will use it to our advantage as motivation to dominate in this tournament. Wish us luck my friends! I’m off to bed J

X Juegos Centroamericanos

Ok, next week Saturday, March 9, 2013, the Belize Senior National Volleyball Teams (male and female) will be travelling to San Jose, Costa Rica to participate in the 10th Central American Games tournament. As the days go by, the anticipation builds. I can't wait to go out there and represent my country to the best of my ability! As was mentioned in the previous post, my aim is to be the Opposite for this tournament and so far, it looks like I'm accomplishing it. We have about one week of practice left and I'm sure we will make very good use of it. While over in Costa Rica, I'll try my best to update you on the statistics of each game. So far, both male and females teams are scheduled to play against Panama's male and female team on Monday, 11th March, 2013. On Tuesday, March 12, 2013, the females will play against Nicaragua and the Males will play against Guatemala. The females will play against Honduras while the males play against Nicaragua on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. To keep up with the schedule, be sure to return to my blog and find out which teams make it to the finals :-).

Upcoming Tournament

So this is it, we are preparing for the Central American Championships to be held in March this year. I'm not sure of location but as soon as I find out, I shall inform you. So far, workouts have been going great and I feel myself improving at each practice. My aim for this tournament is to play as the Opposite. I'm tired of playing Middle, a change would be nice. As a team, we are doing much better each practice as well, we have a better defense, the attack is improving, we aren't working much on blocking as a team but we will do so in upcoming weeks and our service is strong, but needs a little more work. I'm looking forward to this tournament so that we can go and represent our country and do well. That's all for now folks :-)