Flow Sentry Brokers Deacons and Club United scored contrasting victories when the women’s section of the Goddard Enterprises Limited Senior Volleyball Knockouts continued Monday night at the Wildey Gymnasium.
Deacons recovered from their loss to the unbeaten Warrens the night before by stopping last year’s losing finalists Freekz Customs Chargers 25-19, 25-11, 20-25, 25-19.
Dionne Licorish and Julia Lewis played a tremendous game of attack for Deacons while Chargers could not find a counter of any consistency.
The slimly built Shani Leacock gave Chargers hope of taking the first set with four successive crisp, quick attacks after her team trailed 0-6 early.
However, Licorish and Lewis, along with birthday girl Tamisha Webb, stunned Chargers with their spiking.
Crafty serving and admirable defence by Deacons saw them holding Chargers at the embarrassing score of 23-7 in the second set, which they lost at 11.
At that stage, coach Andrew Culpepper decided to give some rest to on song setter Taymar Maynard for Sharleen Browne, a move that gave Chargers some respite to take the third set.
Chargers then looked keen to carry the game to a decisive fifth set when they recovered from 10-14 in the fourth set to advance to 17-14.
However, poor spiking by Avara Browne, Akeelah Phillips and Thonya Joseph was little counter for Lewis and Licorish as Deacons took that set and the match.
Earlier in the night, Club won their first game of the season by edging Toners 25-15, 15-25, 25-19, 14-25, 15-11 in a game that meandered at snail’s pace.
Club, Toners and RBC Carlton have all ended outside of the next round with 1-5 records each.
The battle to determine semi-final opponents in the women’s draw will be settled tonight when the top four play their final matches.
Warrens are 5-0, while the defending champions Brydens Rockets are 4-1. Both Deacons and Chargers are 3-2.
Chargers will meet Warrens and Deacons will battle the Rockets today from 6:30 p.m.
The objective will be to avoid the fourth ranking so as not to meet the marauding Warrens Jaguars, who are expected to hold the top spot in the semi-finals.
