Defending champions, RBC/RBTT Deacons predictably ended the first round of the Goddards Enterprises Division 1 volleyball league with a flawless 6/0 record and a maximum 30 points when the finals games were played on Monday night at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex.
Ignoring the aberration of a shocking loss in this year’s knockouts to O-Aces, Deacons easily romped past the same opponents, 25-17, 25-15, 25-19, with Deacons picking on former Progressive captain Rene Archer whose verbal bravado was not matched by the on court play of his O-Aces teammates.
Knockout kings Chargers maintained their outside hopes of taking the league by beating Progressive 25-15, 25-23, 25-21.Â
That loss slammed the door on any hopes Progressive might still have held of winning the league.
With Renier Grace still out with injury and Akeem Payne losing some of his earlier fire, Progressive hardly looked capable of averting their third loss of the first round. Key man Fabian Cox played his usual hot and cold game in the face of fire from Chargers spiking weapons.
The third set was even at ten all until the two tallest men in the league, Jamaican Mark Lewis and Romel Agard, both standing 6′ 6″ combined to inflict three successive blocks on Cox with each block increasing in force.
A similar scene was played out at 17-13, with Agard and Alain London meting out the same three-course treatment on Payne.
Chargers will enter Round Two 6-5 with 27 points. On the other hand Progressive have lost half of their six first round matches and are on 18 points.Â
The unpredictable Cawmere, who had stunned Progressive early in the season, finished third with a 4-2 record and 20 points after stopping the BNB Juniors 25-19, 28-26, 25-22.
O-Aces will enter Round Two 2-4 with ten points, the same as Sunpower Foundation United who ended 1-5. The Juniors have just two points after failing to win a first round match.
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