Volleyball Development Program

Golden times at Volleyball Victoria Schools' Cup

In Week 2, the Year 12 girls, Year 10 boys and Year 10 girls NHS volleyball teams spent the week competing in the Volleyball Victoria Schools Cup. All teams played at a very high standard and fought hard against schools from all over the state. One of the biggest highlights of the week was the Year 10 boys winning gold against Cheltenham by 2 points with all players improving heaps throughout the tournament!!! Some other highlights included Illi’s powerful serves and Una and Lois’ hits from the middle in the year 10 girls team, and from the year 12s Lily’s passing, Aila’s pipes and Jacqui’s powerful left handed hits. Overall, it was a super fun tournament that all players should be very proud of!  

Thanks to Ms Hales for organising and to all the other teachers and coaches that supported during the week.  

~Amie Stapleton Year 11

The past tournament was great for building excitement as the Year 10 girls’ volleyball team prepares for their end-of-year trip to the Gold Coast! With our coach Kesinee helping us out every week at training, I can speak for everyone in saying we have improved so much this year and continue to do so. Everyone had such a good time this tournament with making it to finals and doing so well in the bronze medal match. Although we lost, we had an amazing comeback gaining 10 points off the other team and matching their score in the last set! The energy was high, and everyone was enjoying themselves and cheering each other on. We were so proud of the Year 10 boys who won gold and had almost as much fun cheering them on for their games, as we did playing ours. I am so proud of everyone on my team, and I had an amazing time being captain for this tournament and I know everyone is looking forward to Gold Coast!  We can hardly wait to make the most of this amazing opportunity.  

~Una Clemens Year 10

Year 10 Boys tournament report : The run to gold!

The Year 10 boys had no expectations for the tournament, we fully expected to lose our first game was against Balwyn High. At the time Balwyn High was the best team in the division, and we did end up losing, but we kept close scores during the second set ending 25 to 21. That score smashed our expectations, and we took it as a win even though we lost.  

We then refereed a team with our next game approaching at 4 pm. We were tired but we got warmed up and played against Cheltenham. We took the first set with close score of 25 to 20. Our energy was low during the first set and it really showed in the second set. We were exhausted and we lost 25 to 23. We were down in the dumps with the set loss but we managed to get our energy up and then fully warmed up in the third set. We locked in and started playing well, but so was the other team. Thankfully we took the win with the final score being 17 to 15. We had won our first game of the tournament! We were ecstatic, even though we thought this would be the only win for the entire tournament.  

We were up at 6 am on Thursday another great day of volleyball ahead of us. Our first game was rather early, so we were all still tired as hell. We took that into the game and lost our first set against Yarra Valley Grammar with a final score of 25 to 22. We then fully warmed up in the second set and swept them in set 2, with the score being 25 to 7. We walked away with the a win, with the final score being 15 to 8! We were thrilled with the result and we started to have hope for the tournament.  

Another 4pm game tested us, but in the warmup we got our energy up, and it showed in the game. Set one was 25 to 21, we had destroyed the other teams motivation and energy because in the second set we smashed them 25  to 14. We were on to the semifinals, we were jumping with joy and excitement! 

I imagine the entire team was sore and tired but still we dragged ourselves out at 6 am, to get to school and onto the bus at 6:45am. We had our sights set on the semi-finals. Our energy was high, as we were excited for the semi-finals. We were up against Cheltenham, and we won! We were so happy to be in the finals, the final score being set one being 25 to 18 and set two was 25 to 23. We had made it! We thought we had no hope of making it to the finals in the beginning, but we did it!  But we were up against our toughest opponents yet… 

We were versing Suzanne Cory in the gold medal match. They had a great team, their middle was a great hitter, hitting every angle. They also had crazy strong outside hitters. We knew this was going to be tough but we kept our hopes and energy high. Set one was intense, we were tired and sore and still warming up, so we made a bunch of mistakes and didn’t get the ball up very well. Set one ended really quickly with a score of 25 to 18. We lost the first set but our heads didn’t drop - we knew we could beat them! 

In the second set, we had warmed up and our new friends from Balwyn High were refereeing our game. They were great referees, they knew what they were doing and they  were very strict on both teams. We were ready to go, we went out on court starting on a strong serve by our team. We started up a point then it was their turn to serve we picked it up perfectly getting clean hits in and blocking really well. The energy was high! There were many time outs were called from both sides but in the end we took set 2 final score of set 2 being 25 to 22.  

We were on fire by set 3! We were locked in and we went crazy! The middles were blocking left and right with only 1 good spike getting through for the entire set. Our setter was tossing up amazing sets and our outsides were hitting hard and fast. Our opposites were also hitting really well. Our serves were going great, getting an ace every few serves and picking up the other teams serves. Some of us were spiking over the blocks straight down into the other court - it was amazing! We won! We actually did it! We won the gold medal and came first! We were so happy and were screaming with joy! We lined up shook the other teams’ hand and thanked the referees and celebrated with the other teams there. State League coaches stopped to watch us play. We were amazing!  

We started the tournament with no hope and came out winning. We now have high hopes for the next tournament, aiming to move up to Division 1 for the Junior Open tournament in December. The final scores for set 3 was 15 to 13 it was a close game. Players on the team were Leif and Tom as middles Finn, Alex and Xander as outsides Jasper as setter, Hugh as opposite and Xavier as libero and Matt Longden as our coach. A special thanks to all the teachers who volunteered their time to take us and thank you to all the coaches who coached us and the other teams, we all really appreciate it!