History beckons for defending champions Chargers’ women and their men, former kings Progressive and the fiery hot Rockets when the finals of the Cooperators General Insurance volleyball knockouts are staged tonight at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex.
The four finalists qualified for this stage of the battle with simple victories in the semi-finals on Monday night as their opponents seemed contented to follow a prepared script.
Only newboys O-Aces looked willing to deviate from the script as they took a set from Chargers before folding 20-25, 25-19, 20-25, 22-25.
Jamal Branch and Darren Franklyn seemed set to take on Dale Addison and his attacking Chargers when they countered to take the second set. Addison, going off with a strained hamstring, gave O-Aces further confidence in the third set.
Another chance
However, Addison returned for Damien Danzell, Nicholas Matthias, Gregory Burke and Dwayne Howell to give Chargers another chance to win their first knockout title. They will meet Progressive who hardly broke a sweat in dismissing Cawmere 25-21, 25-23, 25-15.
Strangely, Cawmere never used Fabian Bartlett who had linked with Wendell Beckles to push Cawmere into the semi-finals. Even so, a better showing by Cawmere might have done little to stop Progressive who are in the hunt for their tenth knockout crown and their first since 1993.
The women’s games were flat with Rockets and Chargers scoring predictable wins over Carefree Toners and Powerade The Club respectively. The Club should have taken the second set, but poor serving at critical times saw Chargers advancing 25-21, 29-27, 25-11, even without St Lucian Dania Hamilton who had an exam at Cave Hill.
Rockets played a sub-par game, but were still dangerous enough to stop Toners 25-21, 25-19, 25-23. Rockets, in top gear, appear lethal with the attack of Shari Matthews and Anicia Wood intimidating most opponents. However, setter Jess Le tends to give some hope to the opposition by sharing too many sets to the weaker attackers in the Rockets’ side.
Rockets won their only knockout title in 1988 and Matthews was part of that squad which had taken the league in 2004. Coach Paul Payne is confident that his team can repeat their preliminary win over the Chargers when they meet tonight.
