Volleyball School Cup
From Tuesday 26th - Thursday 28th of May Mr Bowen took Year 9 & 10 boys and girls to the Volleyball Schools Cup run by Volleyball Victoria. This 3 day event allowed students to participate against schools outside of the Government Education System and against some schools with Volleyball academies. In the girls competition, the girls started with a close 3 set loss which saw them win their only set across the 3 day tournament. The girls were disheartened and never recovered over the 3 days, a disappointing outcome but hopefully they learnt that teamwork and camaraderie is a key aspect to team activities.
The boys team however was a very different story! The boys played 3 days of well organised, high energy volleyball that was almost solely driven by themselves, but expertly lead by Seth Holland. Across the 2 days of group/preliminary matches, they dropped only 3 sets in 6 matches and 2 of those sets were 3rd sets that were inconsequential to the result of their match. They moved into finals day as the top ranked team and went on to win their Semi Final against Cranbourne West SC in a competitive, yet comfortable 2 set win 25-18 in both sets.
This put them into the Grand Final and still undefeated against Nazareth College, who they had beaten 3 sets to 0 the previous day. The boys started the final really rocky and were 6-1 down in quick time, after a timeout the boys played a little better but were still down in the set by up to 9 points at one point mid-way through the set. Then it was the comeback of all time, starting down their first potential loss and multiple Nazareth teams cheering against them, they clicked into gear and quietened the crowd to what turn into whimpers. They overturned the deficit, took a point lead, then closed out the set 25-23! With boys pumped and the opponents on the canvas they continued their ridiculous gameplay, strategy and energy to close out the title with a 25-9 second set.
Overall they had a record of 8 wins, 0 losses and only 3 dropped sets all tournament and to top things off… Seth Holland was voted the Division MVP! A moment none of them will forget, me included! I was so proud to see them shine and the passion and excitement come out. A massive thanks to Watto for agreeing to pay the hefty fee to enter the teams and Karen for being Wonder Woman of organisation and support. Karen spent hours on emails and numerous phone calls to ensure everything was organised in what turned out to be more complex than we had originally thought. Even making phone calls at 7am when a student did arrive.
If you see these students in your classes or in the yard it would be great to give them a shout out!
Boys: Seth Holland, Tristan Hoybia, Luke Atkinson, Deziah Samuelu, Tyler Patterson, Archie McGrath, Morgan Hoth, Lewis Donaldson.
Girls: Amber MacAllister, Tylica Pomery, Kristal Pomery, Rachel Maypiece, Angel Selbin, Hayley Wallis, Yoshi Tada, Lexi Dawkins (injured but expert scorer)
Chris Bowen
