The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Prince Wilson, Renaldo Forbes and Byron Ferguson came up big as they helped the Bahamas men’s national volleyball team to go undefeated and win the gold medal in Group A of the NORCECA 2014 FIVB Men’s World Championship qualifiers over the weekend.

After the Bahamas knocked off host Curacao in four sets on Sunday night at the International School of Curacao in Willemsted, Curacao, Wilson was named the most vaulable player and he was also the second best scorer behind Darwin Colina of Curacao.

Knowles carted off the best spiker award and Ferguson clinched the best blocker trophy. Knowles and Ferguson joined Wilson in being named to the All-Tournament team.

Accepting the award, Wilson was quoted on the tournament’s website that he owed it all to his team-mates.

“My team-mates were the ones who made this possible because without them, we could not have won these matches and then these individual awards,” Wilson said. “It was a good effort all around.”

That all-around effort resulted in the Bahamas’ 22-25, 25-20, 25-21, 25-21 victory in one hour, 38 minutes over Curacao to cap off the perfect trip through the two gruelling days of intense competition.

In that game, Byron Ferguson had a team-high 18 points, including seven blocks, Renaldo Knowles chipped in with 14 and Wilson, the team captain, contributed 13 points.

Head coach Raymond Wilson, who was assisted by DeVince Smith, said the win proved also that the victory at the CAZOVA Championship was no fluke, but they are already looking ahead to the second round of qualification.

“In this tournament, our goal as Team Bahamas is to go as far as we can in each round and matches like these against Curacao, who came out on a high can, only improve your level of play which is good,” Wilson said.

As the winners of Group A, the Bahamas now joins the French St Martin (Group D runner-up), Barbados (Group E runner-up) and Nicaragua (Group H third place finisher) in their second round Pool I qualification.

Group A runner-up Curacao will now face Antigua & Barbuda (Group D winner), Costa Rica (Group H runner-up) and Aruba (Group E third place finisher) in their second round Pool L qualifiers.

The Bahamas team was scheduled to return home Monday night without Byron Ferguson who went to Finland to continue his professional career, while Romel Lightbourne headed home to North Carolina.