JaVa scouting talent through local league

Jackie Cowan, general secretary of the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA), said she is excited about the start of the 2019 club league.

The competition, which started last Saturday, will be used to scout talent for various national programmes.

Jamaica is set to host the Girls Under-18 and Boys Under-19 Caribbean Volleyball Championships in June, where Jamaica U-19 Boys are the defending champions.

“It (competition) will help to select players and develop them for these young teams. Especially on the male side because we do have more males playing volleyball than females and so the competition will help in that regard. We see also where UWI and Venus have entered B teams that mostly consist of the younger players as well as the St Ann Renegades Primary out of Oracabessa High School,” Cowan said.

Better opportunity

The competition, that is set the run for about three months, will see 11 male teams with newcomers St. Ann Renegades and Allman Town Prime. Six teams will contest the women’s competition.

“We are quite excited this year because we have two new entrants on the male side in the St Ann Renegades and Allman Town Prime. This means that we have more persons wanting to play with UWI and Venus entering B teams. This gives us a better opportunity for scouting for our national programmes, so we are quite happy about that.

“What we have seen also is the spread of volleyball right across the island, which is good for the sport. We have a team out of Westmoreland (Vikings) and one out of St James (UWI MoBay),” she said.

Saturday’s Male result:

- Venus A won 3-0 Allman Town (25-2, 25-4, 25-0)

- Venus B won 3-0 Allman Town (25-3, 25-13, 25-5)

- Venus A won 3-2 GCF (25-16, 24-26, 25-22, 22-25, 15-9)

- UWI won 3-1 Vikings (25-15, 24 -26, 25 -17, 25-19)

Female games:

- GCF won 3-0 Venus (25-6, 25-13, 25-13)

- UWI won 3-1 Vikings (25-20, 25 - 20, 19 - 25, 25- 17)