BY Courage Nyaya RISING beach volleyball teenagers Dean Mukasa (16) and Apronage Ngorima (17) who were impressive at the Zone 6 Beach Volleyball first leg held in Maputo, Mozambique, earlier this month are looking to better their performance during the second leg of the competition to be held in South Africa next month.
The competition kicks off on April 7 and ends three days later.
Mukasa and Ngorima were the youngest players at the tournament in Maputo and the boys defied odds to put up a classy performance despite playing against the experienced men.
Despite travelling from Harare to Maputo by road, Mukasa and Ngorima were excited with the trip.
“It was a great experience travelling a long way from Harare to Maputo by road,” Mukasa said.
Ngorima also expressed delight over the Maputo trip.
“We learnt a lot on this beach volleyball tour, first time to play at a real beach.
There were a lot of factors that we came across, the beach sand was very different from the courts made in Zimbabwe, sea wind and all games we played with senior teams of which we gave them a good run for gold.
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Now we are starting to work hard in our training and on our next tour in South Africa.
I’m sure we are to bring medals and the other thing we travelled without our coach, so we had to plan all by ourselves — a great experience indeed.
Hopefully, we get sponsorship and be able to attend the next tour and others following,” he said.
AM Volleyball Academy head coach Aaron Mutede said it was their task to develop future Olympians.
“It is part of our plans as AM Volleyball Academy to develop future Olympians.
We have noticed beach volleyball has more chances in qualifying for junior Olympics and this way we spend our time scouting for these youngsters.
We go as far as Chimanda, Masvingo, Victoria Falls and Binga in order to look for the needed athletes for beach volleyball and also develop these young players to be great players for indoor volleyball, for example Mukasa who was best server of African Union Sports Council Region Five games held in Maseru, Lesotho last year.”
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