The United States Virgin Islands (ISV) U21 Women Team is the reigning Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) champions, qualifying them to participate in the U21 Women North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation (NORCECA) Continental Championship.
This event is the second of three phases of the Federation of International Volleyball (FIVB) global tournament to crown the best U21 women’s volleyball team in the world. The winner will receive an automatic bid into the U21 World Championship, which will be held in 2025.
The ISV U21 women’s team was one of eight countries from NORCECA to make it to the continental phase of the FIVB global tournament. The other seven teams were from the United States of America, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Suriname. This year’s event was held in Toronto, Canada, from June 23 to July 1.
Isaac Raphael, head coach of ISV, was hoping that a two-week training camp held prior to this trip would be enough to help ISV have a strong showing at this event.
“We have a young team, and we are looking forward to seeing them perform at this level. It’s going to be a tough competition, but I believe that is the way you improve, said Raphael in an interview at the event. “We spent a couple of weeks at a training camp in Orlando and we are hoping that will be enough. It should show what we have done in the last couple of weeks.”
ISV played their first of three first-round matches on June 25 against Mexico. They lost that match 25-13, 25-8, 25-15. Team captain Anna Gillens led the team with 9 points. In their second match, host Canada waited for the team from the Caribbean. Team Canada was anything but gracious as they took care of ISV in straight sets 25-18, 25-11, 25-7. Mya Brown’s 7 points led ISV. In the final match of the first round, ISV was hopeful as they played the other winless team in their pool, Costa Rica. Even though this match was more competitive, the Central American team still managed to be victorious in three tough sets, 25-21, 25-19, 25-20. Gillens and Brown led the way with 13 and 11 points, respectively. Krystal Eddy performed best in the tournament, contributing 5 points via the block.
After a day of rest, the island girls found themselves in a rematch against Mexico in their first of two classification matches. Raphael made some changes to the lineup for this rematch, which seemed to be fruitful, but it still wasn’t enough. Mexico took care of ISV in straight sets, 25-15, 25-14, 25-17. Gillens paced the team with 10 points and Eddy kept picking up blocks with 4 points. In their final match of the tournament, ISV faced a familiar foe in Suriname. The last time these two teams met was in the finals of the CAZOVA U21 Championships. ISV won that encounter, and they continued their dominance over their zonal rivals with a 25-13, 25-19, 25-16 victory. The win gave ISV seventh place in the tournament.
USA won the title, giving them the NORCECA automatic spot in the U21 World Championship Tournament in 2025. Among the individuals who won individual awards for this high-level tournament was 2024 Ivanna Eudora Kean High School graduate Krystal Eddy. She was the top blocker in this international competition.
Here are the players and coaching staff that represented ISV at this NORCECA tournament:
Mya Brown
Sapphire Cruz
Jala Dixon
Krystal Eddy
Anna Gillens
Jayden Gorman
Sophie Hertz
Hailey Pierce
Sarai Simpson
Jahyra Thomas
Zyia Toussaint
Mya Vigilant
Isaac Raphael – Head Coach
Myriam Rodney – Asst Coach
Vanessa James – Statistician
Gisele Schjang – Team Manager
ISV has no time to rest as the U.S. Virgin Islands is taking a men’s and a women’s team to the U19 CAZOVA Championship in Jamaica from July 26 to Aug. 4.
