Club league is volleyball’s next step forward

After a long break enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic, volleyball made a step back toward normalcy with the reintroduction of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) National Championship earlier this year. The next step in the sport’s revival will come next month when the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA) will stage its annual club league. JaVA president, Jacqueline Cowan, is determined to press ahead.

Asked whether the league will usher in a period of continued recovery, she explained, “We would have hoped that more clubs would be willing and ready to participate. We actually asked them to let us know if they would be able to and we got really no response but what we heard is that clubs were actually training.”

JaVA has since sent out entry registration forms to the clubs and Cowans is hopeful. “We’ve given them I think until October 7 to respond and then that now will drive us to see how we go forward with that,” she said yesterday.

The ISSA tournament saw Wolmer’s Girls and St Jago High School triumphant at the finals in April. The girls from Heroes Circle came back from a two-set deficit to get past Hillel Academy 16-25, 25-23, 25-16, 25-16 to earn a 27th national schools’ crown.

St Jago outlasted Wolmer’s Boys 25-22, 23-25, 25-20, 25-22 for the boys’ title.

According to President Cowan, the level of play and a reduced pool of entries showed how the pandemic had eroded the players’ skill level. “There was definitely an erosion. You saw it from a technical aspect, but you also would have seen it from the fact that there were so few schools that actually entered the competition this year. So, they hadn’t really gotten back, but from a technical standpoint, a lot of work needs to be done.”

Usually, entries run past the 50-school mark, but this year saw that number cut in half.

“What we were happy about, though, was the commitment of the athletes and the coaches to actually get back started. So, I think next season or next year, when they have the competition again, we should see an improvement,” she envisaged.

To accelerate the recovery, JaVA is working with ISSA to stage a certification programme for coaches. “That actually started this year so we’re targeting high schools for their coaches to be certified,” Cowans advised.

The pandemic kept schools closed and that not only hurt school terms but clubs too. Even though the go-ahead to restart local volleyball in November 2021, no advances could be made for several weeks. “Even though we got permission to re-start, venues were not available so you just couldn’t do anything. We just had to wait until schools opened because a lot of clubs play at schools. So now that that has opened up, it’s a little easier,” she recounted with her mind clearly looking ahead to a successful era for the sport.