Lekki Cruisers snatched victory from the jaws of defeat today 14 October 2022 to beat perennial national champions Sunshine Spikers to qualify for the final of Lekki Volleyball Club LVC Thunder games at the Teslim Balogun stadium Lagos.
The game looked to be slipping away from Cruisers when they went down 1-2, but excellent spiking and blocking skills from Ebuka, Prince Okechukwu and Obayemi ensured they edged the game 3-2 at the death.
Side attacker and Nigeria’s star beach volleyball player Ogunshina Obayemi attributed the victory to eventual cooler heads that prevailed:
“We almost lost the game in the sense that my teammates were hot tempered, that’s not volleyball.
“If your opponent is leading by 10 points, you can still meet up by being calm.
“When you lose a point and feel you’ve the lost the whole world, your opponent will not wait for you to serve, they will rush you and before you know you will lose the set.
“We calmed down, played together as a team, when there was a need for someone to come on, we subbed.
“And the coach was up and doing, he’s a very good coach, a national team coach, so he used everything he knows to win the game.”
Cruisers will now play Amuwo Spikers who demolished Logistics Spikers 3-0 in the men’s second semifinal today.
Cruisers’ winning charm faded off in the women’s category as they fell 1-3 to Legacy Volleyball club in the semis while Key Style Travels sent packing Golden Spikers also by 3-0.
Legacy and Keystyle will battle it out in the women’s final while Cruisers and Golden Spikers will square off against each other in the third place match.
In the men’s 3rd/4th place playoff Sunshine will confront Logistics.
Each winner of tomorrow’s finals in both the women’s and men’s categories will receive one million Naira while runnersup will pocket half a million naira.
Meanwhile one of the organisers of the LVC Thunder games Kenechukwu Charles Okafor has been impressed by the outcome of events in the championship.
Consequently Okafor has promised a longer longevity for the tournament:
“The plan is to make this an annual event. This is our first event, and the way it has turned out, the reception is great, the fans are great, the energy is very intense. Next year it’s going to better than this.
Okafor, an avid volleyball supporter, concluded that the games could grow beyond the shores of Nigeria:
“Eventually we will be organising international tournaments, who knows. We intend to organise events like this every single year just to promote volleyball as much as we can.”
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