Daraine Luton, Freelance Writer
A PLACE among volleyball elite at next year's World Championships in Japan is just two games away from Jamaica's Riddim Girls.
But if these girls are to chisel their names in annals of history as the first Jamaican team to qualify for volleyball's showpiece event, they must start with a bang today when they play Guatemala in Zone E of the (North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confedera-tion) NORCETA second round qualifiers in the Dominican Republic. The game starts at 3:00 p.m. local time.
Twenty-four teams will congregate in Japan next November for the World Championships and if Jamaica is going to be represented, the Riddim Girls will have to place at least third in the five-team group.
Ranked 46th in the world, Jamaica are the fourth-highest rated team in this round of qualification which comprises Cuba (fifth), Dominican Republic (12th), Costa Rica (31st) and the unranked Guatemala.
National coach Ortnel Findlay knows that Jamaica will have to beat the lower teams in Guatemala and Costa Rica if they are to stand a chance of making it to Japan.
"We stand a pretty good chance of beating those two teams (Guatemala and Costa Rica). Our girls have been training hard since we returned from the Pan Am Cup. They know what they have to do and they will be going out there fighting," Findlay told The Gleaner before the team's departure at the weekend.
"It will be tough but we won't be going there to play dead," he said.
"We won't lay down and allow anyone to roll over us. We will be going out there fighting as we know that we can get that third spot."
Jamaica qualified for the second round of the qualifiers after topping the first round qualifiers held here in Kingston in May. That group included The British Virgin Islands, Netherland Antilles and the Cayman Islands. Guatemala finished second to Mexico in their group.
