GUYANA’S senior national volleyball team opened their campaign at the South American Volleyball Championship on a losing note, after falling to Argentina in straight sets when the tournament served off in Brazil. Argentina, ranked sixth in the world, disposed of the Guyanese 25-9, 25-9, 25-13 and, according to reports out of Brazil, the local men gave a good account of themselves – starting off trading shots equally with the world super power as the early scores were practically even in each set.

Competing at this level for the first time since the 1960s and 1970s, way before any of them was even born, the Guyanese men started off the game looking like seasoned campaigners, taking the first point from Argentina and managing to trade equal punches until the scores were about 5-5.
However, at that point the Argentines were able to detect the defect in the Guyanese armour and began exploiting their weakness in blocking and reception.
The second set began practically the same as the first and again, blocking and reception proved to be the downfall of the men from El Dorado.
Taking heart from sporadic shots by Creston Rodney, who appeared to be the leading Guyanese attacker on the night and crafty substitutions by the coach, the local men managed to rally the support of the mostly Brazilian crowd as they fought to a similar scoreline as the first set.
In the third set, head coach Levi Nedd decided to make some changes to the starting line-up and opened with Jason Seelochan, (who turned out to be a crowd favourite) instead of seasoned campaigner Khemraj Singh.
In the third set Guyana again traded shots with Argentina but their blocking and reception were no match for their more experienced counterparts.
Occasional brilliance in defence by Vance Harding and renewed life in the attacking through the setting of Seelochan Nedd’s men dug even deeper than the first two sets and rallied to a more respectable scoreline.
Turning their sights to a lower-ranked Colombia whom they were scheduled to play yesterday, the coach intimated that he was fairly satisfied with the team’s opening account of themselves but expressed that should his team be able to maintain their level of play while improving on certain aspects of their game, it is a realistic possibility that his team can pull off a historic upset against the 2013 bronze medallists, now rated 26th in the world.
Guyana will play Uruguay tomorrow at 14:25hrs in the final preliminary round match.
The Guyanese are placed in Group B of the eight-team tournament alongside one-time winners of the event Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay.
Brazil, dating back to the tournament’s inception in 1951, have won the championship 29 times; a record 24 consecutive times. In fact, Argentina are the only other country to ever win the title, doing so in 1964.