Pre-tournament favourites, Glamorgan women, and BIG South East Port-of-Spain (SEPoS) men were crowned champions of the inaugural BIG SEPoS “Spike Fest” Indoor Volleyball Tournament sanctioned by the T&T Volleyball Federation at the Eastern Regional Indoor Sporting Arena, Orange Grove Road, Tacarigua on Sunday night.
In the best of three sets women’s title decider, Glamorgan battled to a 25-17, 27-25 victory over West Side Stars I.
Earlier in the day, in the semifinals, Glamorgan eased to a 21-11, 21-12 win against JMVP while West Side Stars I defeated SEPoS I 21-16, 21-17.
On Saturday in the quarterfinals, JMVP beat Police 21-15, 21-17 and West Side Stars I outclassed West Side Stars II 21-16, 21-16.
This after SEPoS and Glamorgan won their respective Group A, and Group B, four-team round-robin preliminary series to secure automatic semifinal places, both with 3-0 records.
JMVP, and West Side Stars II qualified for the quarterfinals as second and third-placed finishers from Group A, while West Side Stars I and Police were the teams from Group B to earn the last-eight spots.
The men’s final failed to live up to expectations as SEPoS coasted to a 25-13, 25-19 triumph against Zenith.
Earlier in the last-four match-ups, SEPoS I battled past Glamorgan 26-24, 27-25, and Zenith outlasted Challengers 25-22, 23-25, 15-11.
On Saturday, both Glamorgan and Challengers needed a maximum of three sets to secure quarterfinal wins to secure the two remaining places in the semis.
Paying the final match of the day, Glamorgan had to dig deep to overcome a stubborn Toco Sporting Academy 24-26, 21-17, 15-11 while Challengers battled past Panthers 22-20, 16-21, 15-10 to secure a clash with Zenith in the other semifinals.
When the round-robin group stage of the competition ended a week ago, BIG SEPoS topped Group A with wins over Panthers, Toco Sporting Academy, and JMVP for a 4-0 record to secure the lone automatic semifinal spot as pool winners with a maximum of 12 points while Panthers and Toco qualified to the quarterfinals after they ended in the second, and third spots respectively with eighth and five points.
And in Group B, Zenith held on to the top spot with a 3-1 record, despite losing their final match on Sunday to pool runner-up Glamorgan 20-22, 18-22.
Despite the final day round-robin loss, Zenith tallied nine points to advance straight to the semifinals, while Glamorgan which also finished with a 3-1 mark, but with an inferior set won-to-sets loss ratio had to settle for the runner-up spot with eight points, the same as third-placed Challengers, but ahead of the standings due to more points won in their matches.