ST THOMAS and St James went away with the bragging rights and gold medals in the girls’ and boys’ sections, respectively, of the first JaVA National Under-13 Inter-Parish Volleyball Competition held at Herbert Morrison High School in Montego Bay last Saturday.

Interestingly, St Thomas, who topped the preliminary round of the competition by defeating all their opponents except Westmoreland, turned the tables in the finals against Westmoreland, defeating them 21-12, 21-16.

On the boys side, although Westmoreland displayed some attractive volleyball skills for their age, as it was in the preliminary round so it was in the finals. Westmoreland topped the preliminary round defeating all their opponents except St James, and when both teams met again in the finals, St James proved themselves to be no fluke by coming out straight sets winners, 21-13, 21-20.

The competition realised the first opportunity for the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA) to examine the girls and boys playing in separate competitions at this age.

Both the JaVA primary-level schools competition and the National Under-13 parish training centres are conducted as unisex activities. Steve Davis, JaVA’s National U-13 programme coordinator, expressed satisfaction with the quality of play displayed in the respective categories.

“It was very good to see our girls, in particular, showing that they are able to grasp the skills being taught to them and to play competitive matches,” Davis stated. He further revealed that there were twice as many boys enrolled in the programme. “We have seen the boys in the school competition step up and compete. Although there were girls in the said competition they were usually overshadowed by the boys. We therefore decided to separate them and encouraged the girls to make a good account of themselves. I am very pleased with what I saw,” Davis concluded.

JaVA is currently negotiating to have overseas teams visit Jamaica in order to further expose the children to quasi-international competitions at an early age. “I’ve seen several of our technically competent athletes wilt under the pressure of international competition,” stated Major Warrenton Dixon, president of the JaVA.

“While we are building their technical competence we desire to start building mental toughness in them from now.

“We have no intention to wait until we believe they can beat a visiting team before we start; we want to do this concurrently; we want to entrench in their mindset that winning is about giving your all, whether it is in a winning or losing cause in terms of points.

“We are hoping that corporate Jamaica will lend some much-needed support to this and other initiatives we are undertaking to increase the quality, reach and popularity of volleyball and beach volleyball in Jamaica.”

The placings of the other teams in the girls’ competition were St James third, Kingston fourth and St Ann fifth. In the boys’ division, St Ann were third, St Thomas fourth and Kingston fifth.