by Dave Delgado
Guam - The Guam Volleyball Federation will be sending a male and a female team to the 2014 Youth Olympic Games Qualifiers in Thailand next month. The four juniors who will represent Guam are all experienced athletes, having competed in local and off-island tournaments with strong results. The female tandem of Kristina Folta and Adriana Chang won this year's Marianas Junior Cup in February. They have placed in the top three in the Junior Cup for the past three years. Joining them on the men's side are Misaki Cramer and Riley Jones-Taijeron. Cramer, with a different partner, cinched first place at last month's Marianas Cup Pro-Am Tournament in Saipan. Both have garnered all-island honors for their play indoors in high school. The teams qualified through a qualification tournament and now face the challenge of taking on the rest of Asia to make it to Nanjing.
Chris Shepherd, Head Coach, said, "Training has been going really well, we just got invited a few weeks ago and one we found out we were invited we have been coming down to the beach every other day at 6:00 am. Like I said it's an Olympic Beach Qualifying event for the Youth Summer Olympic Games that are going to be held this summer in China. Basically the kids will be put into different pools when we get there and play pool lay and advance out of that and then it become a single elimination where you have to survive and advance. Like I said we need to be to 6 and that is our goal to make top 6 and qualify for the Summer Youth Olympics. So if we are top 6 we get to advance and move on."