By Morissa Lindsay
Harrison College were unstoppable with home court advantage against Ellerslie Secondary School as both their female and male volleyball teams are into the playoffs of the 2022 National Sports Council Senior Volleyball Competition.
During the two match encounter against Ellerslie, Harrison College girls won the two best of three sets encounter 25-5 and 25-22 while the boys followed suit with an impressive 25-10 and 25-16 victory yesterday afternoon and advanced into the playoff round of the tournament.
The girls of Harrison College have been impressive so far as the number one seed, topping Zone A undefeated from their allotted four matches played and have also earned an automatic place in the semifinals which is how the organizers have structured the competition.
In the opening set against Ellerslie, Harrison College girls were in total control and Destiny Layne who is part of the Barbados Volleyball Association Junior programme produced an outstanding showing like no other with her serves.
The 13-year-old Layne caused several problems for Ellerslie who were unable to find an antidote to stop her serves which were wonderfully executed and well placed. Layne led Harrison College to a comfortable 20 point first set win when the final whistle of referee Adrian Dyall sounded.
In the second stanza, Harrison College led for most of the second set until Ellerslie fought extremely hard to equalise 21-21 and put the host under some pressure. Harrison College were forced to call timeout and on resumption they held their nerves and did just enough to come out on top.
Bragging rights also went to the males of Harrison College in Zone A as they dominated proceedings against Ellerslie as well. At the second technical timeout of the opening set, Harrison College led 16-5 thanks to fantastic outside plays from Reshawn Batson.
One of the challenges that plagued Ellerslie was the fact that they struggled to return the serves on numerous occasions. That was seemingly a general problem for Ellerslie as their female counterparts also had difficulties returning the serves when they played the first match of the afternoon.
Down 19-7, Ellerslie was desperate for a response and they opted to call a timeout and also made a substitution when Sergio Scantlebury came on for Dorian Jones. However, that did not make much of a difference because Harrison College males went on to capture the opening set 25-10 in what was an easy win for them.
At the start of play in the second stanza, Harrison College got off to a good start when Kyle Daisley served six straight aces and that alone put Ellerslie under tremendous pressure to respond.
Desperate for a few points to catch up to Harrison College, Ellerslie opted to bring on Shakiya Stanford in place of Sergio Scantlebury who himself came on as a substitute in the first set but failed to make much of an impact.
When the second technical was called Harrison College held the advantage 16-10 and were on course to claim victory which they did achieve against an inexperienced Ellerslie team. Harrison College males still have one game left to play but win or lose they are into the quarterfinals of the tournament.
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