Spectacular day of volleyball expected from All-Island finals

Male and female urban area volleyball champions Papine High School and Immaculate Conception High School will attempt to return the ISSA All-Island titles to the Corporate Area when they face defending rural and All-Island champions Oracabessa High School and Knox College, respectively, at G. C. Foster today.

In the boys’ category at 2:30 p.m., urban area champions Papine will get another shot at Oracabessa for the national title after the St Mary school bettered them in the All-Island final last term.

In the urban final, Papine were relentless in their power service and hitting as they defeated Wolmer’s 3-1 (19-25, 25-19, 25-11, 25-21) to take the urban title.

Oracabessa also won their rural area final against Manning high fairly comfortably, defeating their opponents 3-0 (25-22, 15-14, 25-15).

In the female urban final, which begins at 12:30 p.m., Immaculate Conception come into unknown territory having won their first ever volleyball title with a 3-1 win over many-time champions Wolmer’s Girls.

Wolmer’s took the first set 25-18. However, Immaculate rallied to take the second, 25-11 before going on to claim the next two sets 25-15, 25-13.

In the rural area female decider, three-time defending champions Knox College eased past Godfrey Stewart 3-0 to book their place in a fourth successive All-island final. Knox won 25-6, 25-12, and 35-33.

After a relatively easy win over Wolmer’s in the urban final, Papine coach Philando Thompson is expecting a much more “intense” match today.

“I can just imagine that it will be a more intense game. We will be going back to the drawing board. We’ll be training, running some plays, as we know for a fact that it will be an intense match,” Thompson anticipated.

Although missing a key piece, Oracabessa are favoured to defend their title, and coach Raheem Wallace is confident that they have what it takes.

“Our key go-to player is absent now, so we had to train somebody’s else to do the role. We just hope that our powers [hitters] and libero can control the game,” he said.

Meanwhile, Knox go in hunt of a fourth straight national title. Despite their favourites tag, coach Colin Rose believes it will come down to who wants it more.

“I won’t make a call as yet (regarding retaining the title). Let us see on the day because it all depends on who comes out on the day, who plays on the day, and who wants it more on the day,” he said.

Nicholas Wilson of Immaculate said after losing the urban final last year, they were eager to get back to this stage, and now they want to go even further and crown themselves All-Island champions.

“Last year, we had a lot of individuals despite us being very good, we weren’t a team. This year, we came together as a team and did what we were supposed to do, and that was to win the urban-area title.

“It [All-Island final] is going to be spectacular for the neutral fans. We want to go out and give our best. We are not going to go there and lay down. We are going to compete and do our best.

“We hope we can push them and also push ourselves to limits we haven’t pushed ourselves [to] before, and we are hopeful, and we are confident we can win the All-Island title as well,” he said.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com