With an awesome display of strength, precision, power and a desire to win at all cost, the St Lucia male volleyball team advanced to the second round of the FIVB 2010 Men’s World Volleyball Championship. This Norceca Group ‘A’ Championship which got underway Thursday, came to a thrilling conclusion on Sunday at the Beausejour Indoor Facility.
As expected, the championship was decided between St Lucia and Dominica who breezed through their matches against Bermuda, St Vincent & the Grenadines and Grenada.
Despite winning 3-0, St Lucia had their hands full against a pesky Dominican team who were in the thick of things in all three sets. The scores were 25-22, 31-29 and 25-19. St Lucia’s Jason Octave led the way with 20 points along with three blocks. Dayne Williams added 10 points.
The turning point came in the second set when Dominica took a 7-1 lead. St Lucia came back with six unanswered points to tie the score. After that it became a see-saw battle with several lead changes. Leading 24-23 and serving, Dominica had a chance to win the set but served out of bounce. With the scored tied 29-29 and the crowd cheering them on, the home side scored the next two points to win the set 31-29.
Losing that set deflated the visiting side. They never recovered as St Lucia went on to win the third set 25-19.
St Lucia Assistant Coach, Florian Combie, did his home work when it came to scouting Dominica and was well prepared to play them. It was no coincidence that Dominica and St Lucia squared off in the final match of the tournament.
“The reason why we had them slated for the last match, was that in case there was any deviation from what we knew about them, we see them play in three games and would know what they had to offer.”
He went on to say: “They gave us a good run for our money. I am happy that our guys won, especially in the second set when they were down and battled it out.”
Dominica Coach, Robert Guiste, congratulated St Lucia for a job well done and said “they wanted it a lot more and took it away from us.”
Describing his team’s performance he said: “I think my guys played well. We deviated from the game plan slightly and I think that cost us the game.”
Guiste was full of compliments for St Lucia’s main man Jason Octave, who he said “was almost stoppable.”
Wrong! He was unstoppable. Octave was a man on mission leading the home side in just about every aspect of the game. For his outstanding play throughout the tournament he carted the following trophies: Best Spiker, Best Server, Best Receiver, Top Scorer and Most Valuable Player. The Best Blocker Award went to Adolf David (St Vincent & the Grenadines); Best Digger, Thomas James (Dominica); and Best Libero, Mike Bengson (Bermuda).
In an earlier game on Sunday evening, St Vincent & the Grenadines defeated Bermuda 25-11, 25-12, 21-25, 25-14. The win gave them a 2-2 won loss record while Bermuda posted a
