The men and women of Team Saint Lucia return home from St Kitts & Nevis this week laden with hardware, after collecting gold and silver medals, respectively, at the Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association (ECVA) Under-20 Beach Championships. Saint Lucia’s men placed first, and their women third, on the sands of Frigate Bay in Basseterre.
Peter Emmanuel and Lindan Clarke went unbeaten to win the men’s title. Emmanuel was on the Under-21 team that won silver in 2025, but this time he and Clarke went one better. They dominated, winning their matches up to the semifinals by an average of seven points.
In the final, Peter Emmanuel and Lindan Clarke faced the Dominican team of Tahj Jno Jules and Caiston Anthony. It was their toughest match of the tournament, but they still won 2-0 (21-18, 21-19).
“Personally, I feel overjoyed,” Emmanuel said. “But at the same time, we still have a couple of areas to brush up on, like the starting of our game. I feel like we do too many careless errors, and it takes a while for us to get our momentum going. And when we do get one, we sometimes let it go too easily to the other team. But other than that, I feel excited.”
Abigail Evans and Aryanna Desir started with a tough women’s loss in three sets to Grenada. They bounced back by beating St Kitts & Nevis, which set up a quarterfinal against St Eustatius. That match also went to three sets, but Saint Lucia advanced to the semifinals.
Evans and Desir met a determined team from the host territory, St Kitts & Nevis, who denied them a spot in the final. In the third-place playoff, however, the Saint Lucian ladies overcame the SKN second team for the second time in as many days, winning 2-0 (21-7, 21-18).
“I would say it wasn’t what we wanted, and we sure could have won the gold medal, but I’m very happy with our effort,” said Evans. “I think we did well for our first real tournament together.”
Team Bermuda won the women’s competition, beating the St Kitts & Nevis first team 2–1 (21–16, 11–21, 15–12) on Sunday evening.
(TF)
