Over 100 Primary-level Schools to Compete in U13 Volleyball‏

KINGSTON, Jamaica, October 15, 2014 - Over 100 Primary, Prep, and All Age schools have indicated intent to participate in the 2014 Jamaica Volleyball Association Phillip Greenland Developmental Volleyball Championship.

The competition will get going at parish level on October 30, 2014 and will see teams competing throughout November for spaces in the December 5 National Finals at the National Stadium.

While the organizing body, Jamaica Volleyball Association (JaVA), anticipates a reduction in the actual number of participants, they expect to far exceed the 57 schools that participated last year.

Also improving this year is the number of parishes involved in the Championship. Climbing sharply from the 5 parishes that participated in the pilot competition in 2010 and 7 in 2013, JaVA now boasts an 11-parish reach- Kingston, St Andrew, Portland and St Mary being the recent additions.

"Efforts have been made to get Trelawny, Manchester and Clarendon on board this year but we have not realized that all-island goal as yet," stated Major Warrenton Dixon, JaVA's School Development Manager.

"After achieving over 100% increase in participation in 2013 we set a goal to realize approximately 100 schools this year.  To date, 111 schools have said they will participate and parishes such as Westmoreland, St James, St Ann and Kingston and St Andrew are anticipating even more registrants. We already have both hands full- we are completely out of ball to give to the schools, having not distributed to St Catherine and St Ann as yet.  We are hopeful that NORCECA will get us some more balls," Dixon said.

Considering that JaVA has never tied down sponsorship for the 5-year competition, JaVA credits the year-to-year improvement in participation to the work of their Parish Coordinators: Lesta Bernard (St Thomas), Maurice Edwards (Kingston and St Andrew), Xavier Clarke (St Catherine), Richard Johnson (St Ann), Ricardo Williams and Andre Neil (St James), and Haile Mika'el (Hanover, Westmoreland and St Elizabeth).

 "We have a mission that must be achieved," stated the militant army Major.  "This year we will be using the Championship as a catalyst to get more high schools interested and involved in volleyball. We'll influence this by hosting some of the primary-level matches at high schools that are not currently involved in the ISSA-lead volleyball competition.  Funding will limit the rate at which we accomplish our mission but it will not preclude its attainment."