GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands, March 26, 2009.- The action of the first stage of the Third Norceca Continental Beach Volleyball Circuit starts on Friday at 9:00 a.m. (local time) with the top ranked teams in both genders on the sands of Seven Miles Beach.

In the men’s division, Puerto Ricans Orlando Irizarry-Robertol Rodriguez are the top seeded and meet the Dominican Republic’s team of Yewddys Perez-German Recio. These pairs compete in Pool A where is also Jamaica.

In the women’s bracket, the top ranked are the Mexicans Vanessa Virgen-Polet Cruz who will be playing against twins Ginette del Rosario-Gina del Rosario of Dominican Republic. The other team in Pool A is Trinidad & Tobago.

Ten teams in each gender have been registered and divided into three pools. They will be playing under the double-elimination format with the top two teams of each pool advancing to the second round along with the top two teams with best points-ratio among the third place finishers.

Pool B of the men’s is composed by USA-1, Canada and Trinidad & Tobago, and Pool C is formed by Cuba, Guatemala, Cayman Islands and USA-2. In the women’s side, Cuba, Guatemala and USA-2 are in Pool B and USA-1, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Cayman Islands in Pool C.

The official opening ceremony took place on Thursday in the presence of Alden McLaughlin, Sports Minister of Cayman Islands, Noel Williams, President of Cayman Islands Volleyball Federation and Arnaldo Sanchez, Technical Delegate of Norceca.

In the men’s division the participants are: 

Roberto Rodriguez-Orlando Irizarry (PUR), Jason Wight-Michael Bruning (USA-1), Sean Allstot-Kevin Lynch (USA-2), Sergio Gonzalez-Karell Peña (CUB), Jorge Bolanos-Erick Garrido (GUA), Ahren Cadieux-Richard Van Huizen (CAN), Yewddys Perez-German Recio (DOM), Mark Lewis-Danny Wilson (JAM), Christian Francois-Kevin Rivers (TTO) and Shervin Rankin-Olney Thompson (CAY).

The participants in the women’s division are: 

 Vanessa Virgen-Polet Cruz (MEX), Nirian Sinal-Kirenia Ballar (CUB), Kristen Batt-Megan Wallin (USA-1), Jennifer Sharp-Jennifer Lombardi (USA-2), Betsy Cruz-Marcela Mora (CRC), Maria Orellana-Anna Ramirez (GUA), Nancy Joseph-Elki Phillip (TTO), Ginette Del Rosario-Gina Del Rosario (DOM), Cherine Richards-Cheryl Daley (JAM) and Wanda Brenton-Jennifer Bily (CAY).