Double strike

FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS of the women who had earlier captured their tenth Cooperators General Insurance Volleyball Knockout crown on Sunday night at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex, the Chargers men ensured a historic double, beating defending champions Progressive in five sets.
Led by the inspiration of captain Dale Addison, Chargers won their first senior volleyball knockout crown by dethroning Progressive 20-25, 25-20, 15-25, 25-17, 15-12.
It was their seventh trip to the knockout finals and Chargers had to come from behind twice to take the game after Progressive turned out in new outfits and played to hold on to their title. 
However, a twist of fate with injuries to Renier Grace and Fabian Cox gave Chargers the space to regain the edge.
Grace, the only player to have won titles with three Division 1 teams – Drax Hall, Chargers and Progressive – started out with the same relentless fire with which he had burnt Deacons in the semi-finals. With Cox and captain Akeem Payne taking the cue from Grace, Progressive took the opening set.
After failing to score a kill early in the second, Grace landed badly and was sidelined with a foot injury up until the fourth set. Chargers battled strongly to take the second set. Then Cox went down with severe cramp in the third set but Progressive still won, on the brink of repeating as champions.
Addison replaced Alain London as setter at critical times to provide the impetus for Mark Lewis, Romel Agard and Dwayne Howell to finally counter Progressive’s challenge with some heat. Young Jason Hendy made some telling kills but he misfired at the wrong times to give Chargers a clutch of easy points.
Addison’s setting, blocking and spiking when London returned to the court proved to be pivotal in carrying the game to five sets. The traditional attacking errors by Progressive also hurt their chance to close out the match.
Progressive started the decider by being penalized the first point after Cox was not present to enter the court at the whistle. Even so, a hitting and then a serving error by Lewis saw Progressive advancing to 3-2. A kill by Payne, a block by Ronald Rice and then Payne acing Lewis carried Progressive to 6-3.
However, two attacking errors by Payne and one by Grace, along with a kill from Howell and an ace by Addison, saw Chargers surging to 8-6. Progressive came back to lock the scores at eight before spiking errors by Cox and the hardly used Corey Harris lifted Chargers to 13-9.
Cox crunched a kill to creep to 10-13 before Lewis misfired to give Progressive hope (11-13), but Lewis made amends by blocking an attempted dump ball from Payne.
Addison, a founding member and president of Chargers, formalized the result  by ripping the ball off the blocks to take the decider, the match and their knockout title.
Chargers’ women declawed Warrens Jaguars by rallying behind sensible setting from young Akeelah Blenman 25-14, 22-25, 25-14, 25-13.
The five-pronged attack of Dania Hamilton, Avara Brown, Akilah Phillips, Sharon Bovell and captain Thonya Joseph proved too potent for Jaguars.
Contrary to the expected script, Warrens countered well to carry the match beyond three sets.
The wiry Jeneice Clarke and the thick Talya Layne provided great support for former Caribbean repeat MVP Anthazia Mason. Clarke played way above her experience in passing, spiking and blocking.
However, the Jaguars erred in both the third and fourth set by bringing on the pint-sized Sherry Norris for Julia Broome.
Norris might be a strong ground defender but keeping her in the front court allowed too much free real estate for the Chargers’ attackers.
With Warrens struggling to keep in contention, Chargers’ younger players showed that it would take play and not names to intimidate them.
In the first set, Phillips executed a monstrous one-on-one block on Mason. Blenman showed even greater disdain for the former Barbados captain in the fourth set by blocking Mason and then wagging her finger  at the crestfallen Jaguar.
While Warrens struggled with their attack and net defence, Chargers enjoyed a spike feast with libero Janelle Pilgrim to repeat as champions while remaining the only undefeated Division 1 volleyball team for 2011.