Students from Years 7 and 8 competed in the Queensland Junior Schools Cup Volleyball recently. More than 2500 students and 250 teams competed from schools all over the state across four venues. It was a huge event.
We had some outstanding results from all three teams.
The Year 7 girls team lifted to the challenge of being in Division 1 - the top division for the age group. They worked courageously as a team to verse some of Brisbane's top volleyball schools and were rewarded with many wins.
Only dropping 1 pool match, the girls were led by the experience and leadership shown by Jorja Grocott. Both Sabine Booth and Brianna Peardon displayed high skills and teamwork, despite only having started volleyball six weeks ago. Having many commanding service runs, Ailin Zhao and Sara Gacina Richardson were calm and helped the team build valuable points. Amelia Fu displayed great teamwork and dedication, working hard in defence and at the net. Lucy Pluss utilised her height at the net to be a dominant hitter, whilst also being reliable in defence.
This incredible display of teamwork and skills enabled the girls to push through to the Gold Medal Match against Kelvin Grove. Beating them previously in a close pool round, the girls played bravely in the final, putting their skills on show. Unfortunately, the girls fell just short, but came away with the silver medal - an outstanding achievement for their first indoor schools cup tournament.
The 7 boys played their hearts out all weekend. Unfortunately, with a late withdrawal due to injury we were left with six players. The boys played on court for every minute of every match. Ben Sharpe and Lawrence Lee brought a calmness on court and the boys quickly improved from match to match. As they grew in confidence, Jack Pluss and Jamie Chirathivat-Geralds become more attacking at the net and started to dominate. By the end of pool play the boys had made it into the bronze medal match against Nudgee College. Cruz Dobson and Carlin Liu were inspirational but unfortunately the boys just fell short. Their improvement over the three days was amazing.
The boys played an extremely high level of volleyball all weekend and never gave up. In pool play the boys put together patches of outstanding volleyball controlling the net through our middles, Ethan Shen and Soham Agrawal. Patrick Deacon and Philip He were outstanding on the outside and Marcello Lamont and Rohan Nallapu controlled the position opposite the setter.
After losing to Burnside in the final pool play game, they managed to fight their way back to meet them again in the final. After winning the first set with outstanding backcourt play by Daniel Kim the boys were 8 to 21 down in the second (sets go to 25). But the boys turned in an amazing stretch of volleyball to win 25 to 23. Tima Korin was awarded MVP of the tournament.
Massive thanks to Issy Garland and Paris Johnson for coaching the teams. We are so lucky to have these two as coaches!! Also, the three Year 10 boys who gave up their weekend to help with coaching and duties, Lachie Mathieson, Lachlan McKinnon and Ethan Grocott.
Also, thanks to Mr Robinson, Miss Malone and the sports department for supporting the students throughout the campaign.
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