Lisa LeBlanc and Rebecca White, Bermuda’s female beach volleyball team, will hope to see their hard work pay off on the sand in Jersey tomorrow at the NatWest Island Games.

LeBlanc and White face a double-header tomorrow, with games against the hosts, and Rhodes, while the men, Gary LeBlanc and Eric Haller have games against Saaremaa and Rhodes.

The pair have been training hard in preparation for the Games under international coach Trevor Theroulde, who coached previously at the University of Central Florida.

“We’ve done as much as we possibly can to prepare, with the four days of training a week and also with our fitness,” LeBlanc said.

“For the month of June [Theroulde] has been helping all of our programmes but especially our national team.

“We feel like it’s come together and we’re ready to compete. We’re very excited about it.”

The men and women have adopted Coral Beach Club as their official training ground and have been squeezing as much time on the courts as possible, including waking early for 5.45am training sessions.

Having that facility has helped the team get in some valuable practice, and Nik Bhola, Coral Beach and Tennis Club general manager, said the resort had been only too happy to help the Island’s athletes prepare for the Games.

“We wish them the greatest possible success in the coming days,” Bhola said. “We are pleased to have been able to provide space on our beach to allow the team to train and have enjoyed working with the Bermuda Volleyball Association in helping the team to undertake the optimum preparation possible.

“We were able to work in a similar way with the Bermuda Davis Cup tennis team recently and look forward to similar collaborations in the future.

“We can’t wait to hear about the performances of Eric, Gary, Lisa and Rebecca. Having seen how hard they have trained, we know they will do Bermuda proud.”

The training at home aside, LeBlanc and White are also coming off gaining some valuable international experience after finishing seventh in an early Olympic qualifying event in Antigua last month.

“It’s an honour to play for Bermuda. I always get very emotional when we have the opening ceremonies,” LeBlanc said. “It’s more of a spotlight, being in front of a foreign crowd.”

The pair were selected after a tryout process as Bermuda’s best in beach volleyball and are primed for the competition.

“It’s just super exciting and just an honour to play and to get to be the two people who make the spot for beach, because we had to tryout,” LeBlanc said. “We just feel like we’ve put in a lot of work and hopefully that work pays off and we can come back with some silverware.”

LeBlanc represented Bermuda in 2013 in the indoor volleyball event, but is transitioning outside and onto the sand for this year’s instalment of the biennial competition.

“Beach is only two players, so you get a lot more repetitions,” she said. “You also have all of the outdoor elements, which are obviously much different than indoor. I do enjoy both a lot but I have to say beach is my favourite.”

Regardless of the result in Jersey, the pair hope to continue the momentum that has been building during their training for the Games.

“At the moment we don’t have anything scheduled, but we definitely want to look to schedule something in the fall, probably either on the East Coast or something or the Caribbean,” LeBlanc said.

“We definitely want to continue; we don’t just want to stop here.”