TT U19 volleyballers prepare for CAZOVA

The TT U-19 men’s volleyball team began preparations early in their quest to create history, at the Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) Championship, in Jamaica, in July.

Since the inception of the Caribbean tournament in 2007, TT have never won but have placed third twice (2007, 2010) and second in 2013. Coach Peer Nasseir is hoping to bring his team to the promise land when they travel to Kingston in two months.

Nasseir admitted his team needs as much practise sessions as possible especially after a four-year absence in this age-group, “We have been working very hard over the past few months. We have completed two thirds of our training cycle and about to transition into our pre-competition phase of our training. We had a few setbacks but have been trying to be as innovative as possible to work around these issues.”

He then boasted of the staff that he assembled, “We have a complete staff that are not only certified but highly experienced and qualified in strength and conditioning, sport nutrition, sport psychology, sport sociologist and sport physician. We are using a periodised training programme that has not been used by the youth teams before.”

The lecturer at the University of TT, Nasseir was full of praises for the support received from staff and parents especially towards fund-raisers in order to offset the cost of the travel. “We hosted a bar-be-que that raised $20,000, we are in the process of getting donation cards approved by the police and our next major fundraiser is a car show and a boat cruise later in the year.

TT will be coming up against Haiti, US Virgin Islands, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Suriname, Bahamas and host Jamaica.

Squad: Avinesha Abhiraj, Nkosi Ayoung, Elijah Best, Daniel Daly, Aamir Dattoo, Tishan Geelal, Julius Ghouralal, Ruchi Marajh, Jordan Phipps Jedaiah Sanoir, Yusuf Shageer, Nicholas Williams.

Staff: Peer Nasseir (coach). Curtis Burkett (assistant coach), Varun Ramlochan (2nd assistant coach), Kiron Simmons (trainer), Krystan Hosein (doctor), Gina Ragbir (manager).