Saltus Grammar School retained the Bermuda School Sports Federation High School girls volleyball title at Mount St Agnes.

Lesley White’s side defeated Bermuda High School for Girls 2-0 in an exciting best-of-three final to be crowned champions for the second year in a row. The scores were 25-15 and 25-20.

At a competition in which seven teams took part, Saltus and BHS were in the same pool, with the former finishing on top.

In the semi-finals, Saltus defeated The Berkeley Institute 25-10, while a 25-13 triumph over MSA sent BHS to the final.

White hailed the work being done by the Bermuda Volleyball Association for helping to sharpen the skills of the youth players.

“It was another exciting final,” White said. “We had the momentum, thankfully out of the semi-finals, as did BHS.

“We’ve got younger and older players, it just all worked together. A lot of the players played really well. Our captain, Kate Marcotte, led the team, and was just amazing.

“Everybody had a great game, they played above what they’ve been doing all season.

“What won it for us was the recovering, the talking, the hits, and our serving was a lot better than we have done in the past.

“We need to give credit to the BVA because they’re doing a lot with the under-18s.

“They’re doing a marvellous job with the youth, boys and girls.

“A good number of our girls are part of the programme, and I think on all the teams we have bits of everybody. From the winning team, we will lose four players, but we have a number of players coming up from middle school, we should be fine.”

Marcotte, 17, a member of the Bermuda Under-18 team that is heading out to the United States next week for a tournament, is saddened by the fact that she will not be part of her school side next year.

“I was really happy that we won again because it’s our senior year, it felt good to win, we’ve been training hard for it. The final was close at the beginning, we’re just working really well together. It was tense but we made it work.

“It was really fun, we all had good fun, I’m sad I’m not going to be here to play next year. The team has a chance to win again next year.

“I’m part of the Bermuda Under-18 team, and we’re going to Daytona, in Florida for a tournament next Friday.”