BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Aug. 31, 2023
Khaya Gordon, 18, is one of the Belizean student athletes who have gotten sports scholarships to US colleges this school year, and her play for the Navarro College Bulldogs is already generating interest and acclaim.
Khaya, a bubbly but brainy student athlete, emerged as a standout on the Belize U-19 national female volleyball team that won the silver medal last month in the AFECAVOL Women’s U19 Female Volleyball Championship July 16-22 at the Belize City Civic Centre.
She won awards for being the Best Scorer and Best Hitter for 89 successful attacks, 8 blocks, 7 aces (successful serves) for a tournament-high total of 104 points. She, along with teammates Blessed Omamurhe and Nisaan Martinez, gave Belize a formidable frontline that only lost 5 sets in 6 matches.
Navarro Bulldogs coach Ariel Apolinario, in an interview on the college’s media organ, gave his early impressions of how Khaya Gordon has been performing for the Navarro Bulldogs so far: “ … just a gifted athlete, powerful, … a real good jumper,” he said, then he went on to remark, “She’s a kid, she’s just only 18-years-old, probably the youngest athlete we have on the roster, but Khaya, she’s exciting to watch … whenever you go out there and see that kid take that first jump and take that first swing, you be like, she is different.”
The Navarro Bulldogs are off to their best ever start, having won their first eight matches in August, and only dropping 3 of the 27 sets they’ve played so far.
This weekend, the Bulldogs will compete in the two-day Blinn Classic at the Kruse Center in Brenham. On Friday, Navarro faces North Central Texas at 9:00 a.m. and Temple College at 1:00 p.m. On Saturday, they square off against unbeaten, 11th-ranked Weatherford at 11:00 a.m. and Hill College at 1:00 p.m.
After this weekend they have 14 conference matches, and 6 non-conference matches on their schedule.
A post on the school’s Facebook page notes that “after a 6-0 start with a sweep of the Odessa Invitational that included three ranked teams, Navarro Volleyball vaulted from preseason’s No. 20 team all the way to No. 6. Coach Ariel Apolinario’s Bulldogs open Region XIV conference play at 6 pm Tuesday at The Wolens Special Events Center against third-ranked Trinity Valley (8-1).”
On Tuesday they were impressive, running the table on Trinity Valley Community College 3-0 (25-20, 25-16, 25-19), and yesterday they beat Wharton County Junior College 3-1 (25-7, 25-27, 25-12, 25-12). They are now 2-0 in REGION XIV Conference matches.
Khaya Gordon is a graduate of St. Catherine Academy, and one of only 3 Belizean athletes to win 3 silver medals in regional volleyball tournaments. She was a member of the Belize national volleyball teams that won silver medals in 2019 (U-18), 2022 (U-21), and 2023 (U-19).
She is currently studying engineering at Navarro and epitomizes the description of a student athlete, a sports scholar who graduated with a 4.0 GPA from her 3rd and 4th form high school classes.
Belize sports fans will be disappointed to learn that she will not be on the national team roster that will compete next week in the XXII Senior Women’s Central American Cup starting on September 4, 2023, in Managua, Nicaragua, but we can hope that she will be on the roster and in El Salvador, San Salvador, for the VI Women’s U-23 Central American Championship starting on November 10, 2023.
Khaya Gordon’s scholarship was made possible with significant assistance from the BK Sports Foundation which told AMANDALA that “BK Sports first took notice of Khaya when she represented Belize at the U18 Central American Championships.”
The foundation further stated, “Khaya was a long-legged and hyper-aggressive 14-year-old 2nd Former at SCA who was playing up an age group. She made an impression on us from then, so we began following her development over the remainder of her high school journey. When Khaya entered 4th form, we were able to connect with her mom Michelle Pascasio, to express our interest in assisting Khaya to get to university. We made several videos of her from her national team experiences, which we used to market her to universities overseas. Unfortunately, the market for Khaya at the time was not as ripe as we had expected, so she was forced to take a gap year. It was during this gap year that we reconnected with Coach Ariel Apolinario, the new Head Coach at Navarro College — a well-known junior college to Belizean athletes.
“Coach Ariel had been hot on the trail during the previous recruiting cycle in hopes of luring Fatima Ramirez to UNLV, where he was the recruiting coordinator. UNLV did not work out at the time for Fatima, but Coach Ariel came calling in October 2022 after seeing updated film we put together on Khaya. By this time, she had begun establishing herself as a versatile and powerful attacker that could add some ‘pop’ to his skilled Navarro lineup.
“BK Sports was able to connect Khaya and her mom with Coach Ariel via zoom, and an offer was made after one video call. While Khaya had another full scholarship offer from rival Texas Juco Blinn College, Coach Ariel’s experiences with international players, him being Cuban himself, was much more comforting to the family. At the start of November 2022, Khaya signed her letter of intent to become a Navarro Bulldog for the next two years of her academic journey and will be pursuing an Associate degree in mechanical engineering.”
AMANDALA notes that Khaya is the daughter of the late Wilfred “Willie” Gordon, a standout forward who was a member of the 5-time Belize semi-pro basketball champions Kremandala Raiders.