We have qualified for Volleyball England’s second ranked U15 play-off competition. It will be played as a knock-out cup involving the following teams:

Wapping Wildcats, Wessex, Ashfield Vipers, Wirral, Sevenoaks School, Hull Thunder, Richmond C.

Venue:  Centre AT7

Address: Bell Green Road, Coventry, CV6 7GP

Time: 10.30am - 5.00pm.

Team: Liv Stewart (capt), Sadie Capstick, Gabi Liu, Natsui Yamamoto, Victoria Adesina, Ella Benjamin, Piruthya Sivakumar.

Results: 

lost v VBDC 2-0, 25-16, 25-13. 

won v Richmond C 2-1, 26-28, 25-11, 15-11

won v Sevenoaks 2-1, 25-19, 16-25, 15-13

The tournament was played following a ladder-style format based on performance in earlier rounds and using first game to VDBC, who were the eventual winners of the competition, put is in the lower half of the draw with a 5th/6th play-off our best final position. Winning the two remaining games gave us 5th place and a final overall ranking of 12th in England.

If our first match against VDBC was disappointingly forgettable, the second against Richmond C was everything that makes you want to go to tournaments. 8-0 down after a dreadful run on service receive we got the ball back on a technicality and something sparked. Suddenly our girls were on fire, Victoria made a couple of outstanding blocks and got control of her service, Gaby started hitting winners and, spurred on by what was becoming a raucous crowd, our girls started to move and to exploit Richmond’s own problems with serve receive. A great fight back brought us level at 24 all but we couldn’t finish them off and went down 26-28. Set 2 was a different story, confidence now up and the crowd behind us we surged into a commanding lead, serving well, returning the ball consistently, and with Gaby on strike and Liv tipping effectively Richmond were forced into error after error. Set 2 won we had to maintain the high standard in the 3rd. Scores were even until we turned round at 8-7 but our girls had never looked like losing, and, bouyed by the crowd and their own adrenaline, took the set 15-11.

Our final match, the 5th/6th place decider against Sevenoaks, was never going to reach the same emotional intensity. We took the first set knowing we should have won it more easily, went off the boil in the second and struggled a little to take the third, but Victoria’s serving and Gaby’s hitting saw us through.