Buckley House Boys crowned State Volleyball Champions
On Friday 20 November the Buckley House Boys Volleyball team travelled to the State Volleyball centre in Dandenong to compete in the State Primary School Volleyball championships. Teams travelled from far and wide to compete on the day with the winner from each of the 8 sporting regions in Victoria (4 city and 4 country) there to challenge, to be awarded the title of the best in Victoria! Teams from Mildura, Lakes entrance and Warrnambool were an example of how far and wide this competition spreads.
John McInerney, Primary Physical Education Teacher explains:
“Our boys were the Northern Metropolitan regional winners having won that championship the week prior. The team was put together in February and has been together all year. In Term 1 we competed for and won the Ivanhoe district competition, before picking it all up again this term.
Initially it was pool play with two divisions of 4 teams playing the preliminary rounds. After dropping an unexpected game in our pool we went through to the semi-finals on top, by percentage, with a 2/1 win loss ratio. In the semi-finals we played Tecoma PS. This actually turned out to be our hardest game. They were one of the few teams who matched us for skill and team work and had a height advantage over us. After winning the first set we were hopeful that we would be in the Grand Final. However Tecoma came back and won the second set and were leading in the third and deciding set. After some great play and some strong serving the boys pulled out a close victory.
We played Noble Park PS from Melbourne’s South East suburbs in the Grand Final. We went in very confident after having defeated them in our initial pool games. They had one very tall, very strong and good player who we had to nullify and if we did this we thought we could win. Thankfully that is exactly how it panned out and the boys played brilliantly to win the Grand final 2-0.
The boys should be really proud of their efforts. We put in a lot of work and training leading up to the event which really paid off. The boys were a committed bunch with all the lads realising what their role in the team was. It was a great learning curve for many of these young sportsman to realise what it took for state success and what they had to do individually to ensure team success. Go Ivanhoe!
Thank you to all the parents who were there on the day, both players and the coach appreciated your support.”
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