The tournament was divided into Pool A and Pool B with some upsets registered on the first day.
Last week, the Botswana Volleyball Federation (BVF) received sponsorship worth P200,000 from Liquid Intelligent Technologies.
The championship this year features all women teams, the top four men’s teams from the Return to Play tournament as well as the boys and girls Under-20 national teams that are preparing for the AUSC Region 5 games slated for Malawi in December.
BVF spokesperson, Mpho Tlhaselo told Sport Monitor that upon being elected into office, the executive committee found that there were no tournaments but they needed to get back into action.
“Volleyball was known as an active sport and this was a priority area for us.
This is a fulfilment of an intention that we had to make sure that teams return to play before we can focus in other areas such as development. We have a lot of things that we want to.
For instance, the marketing department has been suffering. But we felt that before we start doing all those things, we needed players to start playing,” he said. Tlhaselo said it has been difficult to secure sponsorship because companies have been struggling due to the effects of the COVID-19.
He said they approached Liquid with the intention of securing sponsorship for a tournament inclusive of all teams but they were informed that their budget was not enough for that big event.
“We decided to focus on one gender, being women because they are clustered around Gaborone, only two teams are from outside, Magstimela from Mahalapye and Sebokeng coming from Francistown.
That was meant to reduce costs. The men’s teams are all over the country and it was going to be costly.
There are teams that are going to compete in Zone VI and they never had action to prepare. They were also the top three during Return to Play tournament hence we took the top four from that event.
They will play at a later stage of the tournament. They will not be winning any prize money just mobilisation money to attend games,” Tlhaselo further said. He said the tournament is to promote volleyball and show potential sponsors what they can offer.
He said the idea is to give players confidence to return to play. The tournament will be played for five weeks with the final set for December 3 in Molepolole. On Saturday, Kutlwano were stunned by cross town rivals, Kalavango with a convincing 3-1.
The clash, which was the first match in Pool B, saw the youngsters of Kalavango dominating with set scores of 25-19, 25-18, 25-15 and 25-22. The first day of the tournament saw Magstimela digging deep to pick a 3-0 win against Yaros in Pool A match.
The set score stood at 26-24, 26-24 and 25-9. Police VI proved their mettle beating Mafolofolo 3-1 in a closely contested match with a set score of 25-19, 25-9. 25-21 and 25-22. Saturday other results: Police 3-0 BDF VI, Under 18 3-2 Dynamites, Spiking Stars 3-1 Sebokeng, BDF 3-0 Yaros, Dynamites 3-2 Sebokeng and Kutlwano 3-0 Under 18.
