NASSAU – Barbados inflicted a straight-sets defeat on Trinidad & Tobago to avenge their loss at the recent Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games and sweep their 10th men's title in the 11th Caribbean Volleyball Championships on Sunday night.

Playing like true champions, the Barbadians held off Trinidad & Tobago in three exciting sets 25-22, 25-23, 25-23 at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium to put a cap on their perfect run throughout the week-long tournament.

"We played great. We had our game plan and we struck to it," said outside hitter Renier Grace.

"We knew that we were the best team here and so we just had to go out and prove it."

Coach Ludger Niles said Barbados had been winning for so long that it was customary for Barbados to come up big in the championship game. He stressed however this final was for bragging rights.

"Trinidad beat us in Colombia and they were ragging and bragging and we were out for revenge," Niles stressed.

"I told the Trinidadian coach (Gideon Dickson) that I'm going to give him three straight.

"All of my guys were focused and we gave them a warning. They just went out there and did it in three straight, as we had predicted."

Niles said all they did was work on shutting down Trinidad & Tobago's middle game and once they did that, they were able to pull off the win.

Fabian Cox led the attack with 11 kills while Grace finished with eight.

Captain Elwin Oxley, voted the tournament's Most Valuable Player, came up with five blocks.

The women's team however, were not that lucky, and were dethroned by Trinidad.

Trinidad & Tobago started well, stuttered before recovering towin in five sets.

After winning the first two sets, Trinidad & Tobago had to dig down deep in the latter half of the game to hold off a resilient Barbados before emerging with a 25-17, 25-12, 22-25, 23-25, 15-12 verdict.

The victory was also revenge for T&T who lost in straight sets to Barbados in the preliminary stage of the tournament earlier in the week.

"It was a job well done," said Kelly-Ann Billingy who sat out the earlier loss to Barbados. "Barbados have been a tough champion. We've been trying for years to beat them and we finally did it. It just feels great to be the champions."

Voted the Most Valuable Player, Billingy contributed a game high 23 kills to almost single-handedly lead her side.

Barbados coach Paul Payne said he was confident that they would have retained their title.

"I thought that we should have won it but we made too many unforced errors in the last set. That was not good," Payne stated. (CMC)