Female volleyballers back in action after long break

After a quiet 24 months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the women’s national volleyball team got the chance to break a sweat with a ‘Volleyball Sumfest’ last weekend.

The games involved the national team splitting in groups and playing against their teammates but president of the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA), Jacqueline Cowan, said the event was crucial in their preparations for the Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association Championships in 2023.

“We did not want to wait until next year before we started looking at our readiness, looking at the technical aspects of the side,” Cowan said. “It is just to see where we are at and move forward after that.”

She said this is also the team’s first phase in their quest to compete at the next International Volleyball Federation Women’s World Championship. The ‘Volleyball Sumfest’, Cowan said, will help to select the girls who will make up the team.

Assistant coach O’Neil Ebanks said to get to that stage they have a couple of things to work on with the team.

“Last weekend was the first we were coming together as a group, hence the chemistry would not be where we want it to be as that will happen only as we continue training and we are looking ahead to see how we can assemble this group of players once more going forward,” he said.

Ebanks said they will try to train once or twice per month with the locally based females to keep them fit and attempt to have at least one more engagement with the females based in the United States.

Ebanks said the team is comprised of talented players from The University of the West Indies, G.C. Foster College, overseas colleges and even high school girls.

“We have a good spread of players that we are looking at and we are hoping to retain them going forward,” he said.