Barbados and Jamaica emerged as boys’ and girls’ champions, respectively, at the 2024 CAZOVA U19 Boys and Girls Zonal Championships. The tournament concluded earlier this week at the GC Foster College in St Catherine, Jamaica.
The Barbados boys ended up clinching the title after having to go through the quarterfinals. Once there, though, their talent, teamwork, and determination led them to three straight wins, and the championship trophy.
The Bajan lads beat Trinidad & Tobago in a hard-fought final. The Trinbagonians were up two sets to none, and were ready to bring the title back to Port of Spain. But Team Barbados were always keeping it close, and eventually worked out a winning strategy. They came all the way back for victory, sealing it 3-2 (20-25, 24-26, 25-21, 25-22, 15-12).
En route to the final, Barbados men proved too strong for Jamaica, brushing them aside 3-0 (25-20,26-21,25-10) in the semifinal.
For third place among the boys, the US Virgin Islands downed the home team, Jamaica, 3-2 (19-25, 25-23, 22-25, 25-16, 15-9) in another close and competitive matchup.
Meanwhile, despite being the first to book their passage to the semifinals, Barbados girls were unable to advance to the title game, losing to Trinidad & Tobago at the penultimate hurdle. Barbados had previously beaten TTO in the preliminary stages of this competition.
Instead, Jamaica girls won on home soil. For the first-place trophy, they were able to defeat Trinidad & Tobago 3-1 (25-15, 25-23, 24-26, 25-14). In the semifinal round, Jamaica women, who had improved vastly since losing the first game to Barbados on day one, outdid themselves to beat the US Virgin Islands 3-2 (25-20, 19-25, 25-15,23-25, 15-10).
The Barbados girls, though, came back with a vengeance in the bronze medal game. Still stinging from suffering their sole loss of the competition, they ran the table in the third-place playoff, triumphing 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 25-23) and blanketing the young ladies from the US Virgin Islands.
