Under 19 volleyballers aim for medal in Cuba

After completing a one-week camp at G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sports Jamaica's Under-19 volleyballers left the island for the NORCECA Championship to be staged from tomorrow through to June 29 in Havana, Cuba.

The team is very hopeful of bringing home even a bronze medal. The young Jamaicans play in Group A with their opening game against Mexico, before facing Cuba on Saturday. They play their final group game against Antigua and Barbuda on Sunday.

Group A consists of the United States of America, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

The group winners advance automatically to the semi-finals. Second-and third-place teams from each group will play off for the other two semi-final places.

Jamaica coach Steve Davis believes they have prepared well and will do themselves proud.

"It will be tough, but I think we are going to make a good impression so that our nation can be proud of us. We know Cuba will be tough. Mexico is a good team but I don't know about Antigua and Barbuda. I am hoping we can come out of this group and go to the quarter-finals and see where it takes us from there," he said.

The team used the week-long camp to iron out some of their weaknesses.

"We just tried to get them to be a team and to support each other," he said.

"We are a bit weak in certain areas, so we focus a lot of those areas and we played a lot of practise games against Venus, which is a fast power team, so we hope that will help us," he said.