A superlative effort from Renier Grace ended the 17-years drought for Progressive who came from a set down to beat Chargers, 19-25, 25-20, 26-24, 25-21, to capture the Cooperators General Insurance volleyball knockout crown in front of a large and vocal crowd at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex on Wednesday night.
The last time that Progressive would have won a title was back in 1993 and only Grace who had won cups with Drax Hall and, ironically, Chargers, would have savoured championship wine during the past decade when Progressive had reached at least ten finals.
The large crowd of Progressive supporters who thronged into the Gym suggested that something was about to happen while the even larger group of Chargers’ fans hinted that their men would have cliched their first knockout title. When setter Dale Addison unleashed the high jumping Damien Danzell and Dwayne Howell to take the first set, it looked like Chargers would have controlled the game.
However, Grace made the game personal as he slammed kill after kill with tremendous support from young gun Akeem Payne, Fabian Cox and captain Rene Archer as Chargers then struggled to find worthy counters. Howell stopped firing, veteran Gregory Burke made no contribution and most of the other Chargers’ players seemed to be materialising only at serving time since they were almost invisible in the front court.
Chargers attempted to save the match by bringing in reserved setter Shawn Gibson for Burke to allow Addison to show that he was one of the better attackers in the team. However, after Progressive brought on their reserve setter Ronald Rice, the contest became almost one-sided.
Rice brought superior setting skills, improved ground defence and stunning blocking at the net which toppled the Chargers’ championship bus packed with freeloaders into the ravine. Noting was more emphatic than Progressive saving attacks from Chargers for Rice to orchestrate thunderous counters from Payne, Grace and Cox to mute the Chargers’ fans who saw another title evaporate into smoke.
Grace later emphasised how sweet victory was indicating that his team had worked hard running a number of drills to deal with Chargers and he sounded that Progressive would be going hell bent to capture the double in 2010.
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