The Tribune

By JONATHAN BURROWS

Tribune Sports Reporter

jburrows@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas fell just short of a medal at the 2026 Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) Final Four Men’s Championship as Trinidad and Tobago claimed the bronze medal with a 3-1 victory Monday night at the SDK Sports Complex in Brievengat, Curaçao.

After defeating the Bahamians in straight sets during the preliminary round, Trinidad and Tobago completed the season sweep with a 25-20, 25-27, 29-27, 25-22 win to finish third, while Team Bahamas closed the tournament in fourth place.

Trinidad and Tobago controlled much of the opening set, taking a 15-9 lead before The Bahamas mounted a rally to cut the deficit to 17-15.

A timeout allowed Trinidad and Tobago to regroup, and it responded by scoring three of the next four points to extend the lead to 20-15 before taking the set 25-20.The Bahamas responded with its strongest volleyball of the match in the second set. The teams remained level through much of the frame with the score tied at 10-10 and again at 14-14. Trinidad and Tobago appeared to be in command after opening a 20-16 advantage, but the Bahamians refused to back down. They battled back to tie the score at 21-21 and again at 25-25 before winning the final two points to secure a 27-25 victory and even the match at one set apiece.

The third set proved to be the difference. Neither team was able to gain any separation as the score remained tied from 12-12 through 27-27 in one of the most competitive stretches of the tournament. With the set still hanging in the balance, Trinidad and Tobago’s Akim Bushe delivered a decisive kill before his team closed out a 29-27 victory to regain the lead.

The fourth set followed a similar pattern with both teams trading points throughout the opening stages. The score was tied at 16-16 before Trinidad and Tobago edged ahead 20-19 and held off another late Bahamas rally. A block on match point sealed the 25-22 victory and secured the bronze medal.

Monday’s result came after a difficult day for the Bahamians in Sunday’s final round of pool play. The team first dropped a straight sets decision to Barbados, losing 25-21, 25-18, 25-20, before falling to Trinidad and Tobago 25-19, 25-13, 31-29 to set up the bronze medal rematch.

Head coach Alton “Glen” Rolle said the team’s performance against Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday was affected by both the physical demands of the tournament and inconsistent play during the opening sets.

“I would say it’s a combination of mental and physical fatigue,” Rolle said. “Tournaments like this, especially on a high level, when you’re playing two games per day, it’s really taxing on the body, and after the first game for you to cool down and then come back later and then warm up, sometimes that is tough. All in all, we fell down because of our inconsistencies in the first two sets. In the third set, I couldn’t ask for a better fight. To go down like that is something that you can’t complain about, but we could be better.”

Looking ahead to Monday’s rematch, Rolle challenged his players to carry over the intensity they displayed late in Sunday’s loss.

“We’ll be playing Trinidad again, so the message to the team is to start how we finished,” he said. “That same fight, going down to the bitter end is what we need. If we started like that, then we would have won the game easily, but we dug ourselves in a hole that we couldn’t dig ourselves out of, so that’s how come the results weren’t something that we were pleased with.

“We got a lot of growing to do as Team Bahamas. We are missing a key piece but, at the end of the day, the team that we brought, I feel as though we could compete way better than we did.”

The Bahamas opened the tournament with a straight sets loss to host Curaçao, which won 25-21, 25-8, 25-20 before advancing to the championship match against Barbados.

Although Team Bahamas was unable to reach the podium, it closed the tournament with a much stronger showing against Trinidad and Tobago than in the teams’ first meeting, pushing the eventual bronze medallists in three highly competitive sets before ultimately coming up short.