Olivia Gazzard and Isabella Sousa extended their magnificent undefeated run to fire Bermuda into the semi-finals of the Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association Under-20 Beach Volleyball Championships at Frigate Bay.
Following a flawless opening day at the St Kitts Marriott Resort, the powerhouse women's duo faced a tricky quarter-final assignment against Saint Vincent’s Nayelli Fergus and Reanna Robinson.
Gazzard and Sousa were made to work hard in a high-stakes opening set before clinching it twenty-one to nineteen. They then turned up the pressure in the second set, executing their game plan perfectly to run out twenty-one to fifteen winners and book their place in the final four with a straight-sets victory.
Over in the men's draw, Daniel Morris and Carter Lamb showed tremendous character to salvage their tournament after enduring early heartbreak in the round of twelve.
The Bermudian pairing opened their morning against the British Virgin Islands tandem of Alexander Wheatley and Macmonte Fahie. After dropping the first set eighteen to twenty-one, Morris and Lamb fought back brilliantly to take the second twenty-one to seventeen. However, they ran out of steam in the deciding set, falling nine to fifteen.
Banishing that disappointment, the island duo clicked into gear for the remainder of the day to rattle off back-to-back, dominant victories.
They first overcame a resilient push from Mexico's Shayelle Allwaters and Jahvie Hamilton, displaying great composure to secure a two-nil win with scores of twenty-one to nineteen and twenty-one to fifteen.
Morris and Lamb then saved their most ruthless performance for the final match of the day, dismantling the pairing of Carl Miranda-Gaskin and Kristian Young. The Bermudians controlled the sand from the first whistle, romping to a twenty-one to ten win in the first set before completing a rare and emphatic shutout, twenty-one to zero, in the second to cap a highly dramatic day of competition.
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