Australian Volleyball Schools Cup
The School sent three Volleyball Teams to compete in the National Schools Cup for Volleyball. This event has been held in Melbourne, primarily at MSAC for the last 21 years. With 551 teams and over 6,000 Players and officials in Melbourne for the event, it is the largest school sporting event held each year in the Southern Hemisphere! It really is a must attend event and the jewel in the crown for junior Volleyball in Australia.
Our Year 11 Girls and Boys’ Teams have attended this event since Year 7 and once again competed this year. Their involvement in this event and the Volleyball squads from such an early age is why the teams are sitting 1st and 2nd respectively on their AGSV 1sts ladders with the girls already winning the open premiership last year!
The Boys’ Team did a great job in Division 2 this year winning 5 and losing 4 games over the week and finishing 6th. The Girls were in Division 1 and narrowly missed out on the Gold medal playoff after finishing equal 2nd, but missing the final on an inferior set percentage. (The other team won 1 more set over the whole week!) Unfortunately, they didn’t play their best game and lost a close tough match in the Bronze playoff to finish 4th.
This year we also sent a Junior Boys’ Team who played in the Year 8 Division 3 division. This team had a wonderful week and developed brilliantly over the week. The boys actually went through the tournament undefeated with a 10-0 record to win the Gold Medal! It was the first time they had ever played a tournament so we weren’t sure where to place them. Now that we have seen the potential they have, we are looking at possibly skipping Division 2 next year and entering straight into Division 1. With this year’s 1sts boys team almost all being Year 11/12 and finishing their school Volleyball careers early next year, many of these talented Year 8/9 boys are going to step up into our first team later next year.
So, after a huge and exhausting week with all teams playing around 10 games in the five days we see off another AVSC. Thank you to Neil Buszard, Anna Geoghegan and Fleur Ellis for helping with the tournament organisation and thank you to past players Nick Papachristos and Cara Eddings for helping coach over the week. But the biggest thank you for her hard work and dedication must go to our Tournament Manager and Girls Head Coach Tanya McInerney for coordinating all the teams in the lead up to the event.
