The Bermuda junior girls volleyball team will participate in the ECVA U20 Zonal Championships in St Johns, Antigua.

It will be held on August 22 to 26 and represents the first stage of qualification for the Fivb Volleyball Women’s Under-20 World Championship to be held in the summer of 2021.

Bermuda will be sending a squad of 12 players and will face Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Saba and St Lucia.

“We were unable to send a team to the qualification tournament for the 2019 Fivb Volleyball Women’s Under-20 World Championships, back in 2017, so we’re very excited to be able to participate in this new round of qualification for the 2021 event.”, Gary LeBlanc, the head coach, said.

“This event will be, generally, comprised of 17 and 18 year olds, however, the team that we are sending to this stage of the qualification is a relatively young team where the average player age is 16.

“Even though we may be on younger end of the spectrum and less experienced, we’ve been working very hard to come together as a team in preparation for this event and really looking forward to the opportunity to show what we’re capable of.

“All of the players have put in a lot of time and effort over the last several weeks and we hope that with a little more fine-tuning we will be ready to compete.

“I’ve seen some of the senior women’s teams from these countries over the years, but I have no idea what to expect from their under-18 programmes.

“Our focus will be to stick to the fundamentals of the game, do our best to minimise errors and if we remain consistent in our play I think we will come away with some wins.”