Regional Volleyball Champs 2009
We took two teams down to Napier to compete in this year Senior Sec Schools Hawkes Bay / Poverty Bay Volleyball Champs.
GBHS A Loman Thomson ©, Dillion Dolman-Tuhou, Jesse Fleming, Francis Stevens, Baven Kemp, Ricci Stevens, Dallas Nepe, Jordan Nikora-Baker.
GBHS B (Juniors) Adrian Peachy ©, Bodene Walker, Jules Craft, Keenan Poharama, Blake Smith-Tuhou, Jackson Rainbow, Pheonix Nelson.
It was a bit disappointing to finish 3rd overall. We lost to Hastings BHS 15-12 in the fifth set for the second time in a week, having lost by exactly the same score at Super 8. We were hoping to upset Napier BHS A in the semi, but never applied enough pressure with our serving to seriously worry them.
This team of Year 10’s did really well against much bigger and more experienced seniors. Despite losing all their games they played some really good Volleyball, and came close to pinching a set off Napier A and could of upset Lindisfarne and Havelock North. They showed they have improved since the end of last year and will be stronger again come the end of the year when the Junior Tournaments are held.
Thanks to Mrs Venesa Craft who assisted with this trip, without her help the Juniors would not have had the opportunity to play these Senior teams.
The A team is building up for Nationals at the end of the Term and have shown they have the potential to do well, how well will depend on improving in key areas such as serving.
National Volleyball Champs
This years Nationals were held in Palmerston North from Sunday 29th March – Friday 3rd April. Organisers had added an extra day to accommodate the high number of entries, over 70 teams in both Boys and Girls!
The team was Loman Thomson ©, Jesse Fleming, Carl Riini, Francis Stevens, Ricci Stevens, Pera Gibbs, Dillon Dolman-Tuhou, Baven Kemp, and Jamison Gibson-Park.
We went into the tournament seeded 33rd out of the top 40 Boys teams, with eight Pools of five teams to sort teams into Division 1 (1-16), Division 2 (17-32), and Division 3 (33 – 48). Our goal was to make it into the top 20 teams, with our Pool games on Days one and two having a huge bearing on reaching this goal.
Pool Play for Divisional Grading (Mon & Tues)
De La Salle was ranked as Aucklands top team, although they looked beatable in their first game against weaker opposition. However they were too big and we lacked consistency, despite two close sets we couldn’t win one.
The win against Long Bay was one of the team’s best performances of the season. The whole team played well, our attacking players all fired, and our defence was organised and determined. The higher ranked Long Bay never got going and we won in three Sets to get some real confidence.
We started well against Palmy Boys and showed we were much better than them in the first Set. However as the team is prone to doing they dropped their standard to that of the opposition and gradually let Palmy back into the game, gifting them the third set with sloppy errors and poor options. We closed out the fourth set convincingly to win, but we needed to improve our accuracy and consistency to reach our goal.
Our last Pool game against Matamata was a good game, we played alright but lost points at key times to let them into the game. The third set swung back and fourth and it was tough to lose 30-32 in the end. Our fourth set performance was great, we ripped them apart and went into the deciding fifth set confident of winning. They played smarter than us in the fifth and our confidence quickly slipped as they applied pressure. This loss was disappointing and we thought we’d missed our chance to qualify for Division 1 (top 16), having only won two of our four Pool games.
Because both Matamata and Long Bay had won two of their four games also it went to a points countback to decide who went through to Div 1 (second in the Pool). We had the best points for/against ratio and just like that we were in Div 1, the boys were stoked as we had never got to this level before. The pressure was off as we were in bonus territory, our next objective was to get as far off the bottom of Div 1 as possible.
The game against Waimea was disappointing, we were competitive and had them under pressure at times however errors at key times prevented us from capitalising on this pressure.
We played well against Trident ‘B’ and had a relatively easy win. They let us off the hook every time they were starting to build pressure, a favour we often do for our opposition. This win meant that we were off the bottom of Div 1, and had an opportunity to creep inside the top 10 teams.
Our third Div 1 Pool game was against the top ranked team in the country, Tauranga Boys ‘A’. We played them at Super 8 and were competitive, threatening to pinch a Set off them, this gave us confidence of at least giving them a good game. We did give them a good game, especially considering we played without top player Loman (who rolled an ankle in the Trident game). We rattled TBC and for the first time I saw how they could be beaten, they were always going to be too big and clever for us but they showed chinches in their armour.
Coming third in our Pool meant that we played the other three Third place getters for positions 9th-12th in Div 1.
Playoff Results (Thur 2nd & Fri 3rd April)
V Nelson College ‘A’ lost 0-3 (20-25,22-25,15-25)
V Tikipunga HS ‘A’ lost 1-2 (25-22,20-25,10-15)
These last two games were a disappointing way to finish the Tournament. Nelson was a good team and they easily beat us, however we made it far too easy for them, making poor decisions and lacking energy. Our final game against Tikipunga decided our final placing and was only a three setter; we had seen them play before and were confident of taking them down. Despite a reasonably good start we let them back in the game (once again) and gradually lost all our momentum. The third set slipped away from us and it was a shame to finish like this.
This meant we finished Twelfth overall, which is a good achievement for the team. Our standard of Volleyball has been steadily improving over the last four to five years, and this team proved a Gisborne team can match it with the best in the Country. Considering we have no competition locally and must travel to Napier to play, these boys have done remarkably well to reach this high standard.
Thanks to all the boys for a good Term 1, for those who are leaving school at the end of the year thanks for your contribution to GBHS Volleyball. For those returning, lets keep lifting the standard of Volleyball and look to improve on this result in 2010.
Super 8 Volleyball 2009
We hosted this year’s tournament for the first time and teams from all over the central North Island travelled to attend. Ilminster Intermediate and Girls High generously volunteered the use of their gyms as Gisborne lacks a single facility large enough to host a tournament of this size.
Pool play started on Sunday (8th March) with Pool A games played at Ilminster and Pool B games played at Girls High. Two Pools of 4 teams meant each team played 3 games, with the top 2 making semi-finals, and the bottom 2 playing off for positions 5-8.
Our first game was against Napier BHS ‘B’ (they were invited to enter a B team when Rotorua pulled out at late notice). This was the first game we had played this season and gave us a chance to get some valuable game time, we won 3-1.
The next game was against Tauranga BC, they are consistently one of the top teams in the country and have won the Super 8 trophy 7 out of 9 times. We came close to up-setting them in the first set (we got it to 24-24), however they did enough to win the first set and then claimed the next 2 sets to win 3-0.
Our third game against Hastings BHS would decide whether we made the semi’s or not, the winner taking second spot and the loser ending up third. We didn’t start well and struggled with our combinations, losing the first two sets narrowly. However we managed to apply enough pressure in the next two sets to rattle a good Hastings team and tie the game up two sets apiece. The deciding fifth set (only up to 15) didn’t start well for us and we quickly found ourselves trailing. We battled back into the contest, however it was too late and we lost 15-12. A disappointing end to our hopes of winning the Super 8 tournament, but considering it was the third game the team had played this season it wasn’t too bad.
This loss mean’t we played off for positions 5-8 the following day (Monday 9th March). We easily accounted for Palmerston North BHS 3-0, and then Napier BHS ‘B’ (again) 3-0, to place fifth overall. Not the placing we had hoped for, but a tough draw and lack of game time conspired against us. This was the first of four Tournaments the team will play over the next four weeks, and if we can improve on this performance in each tournament we should be in good shape for Nationals in the first week of April.
GBHS Senior ‘A’ Volleyball Team
Loman Thomson © Super 8 Team MVP, Jesse Fleming, Francis Tamihere-Stevens, Ricci Tamihere-Stevens, Pera Gibbs, Baven Kemp, Dillion Dolman-Tuhou, Jamison Gibson-Park, Dallas Nepe.
Simon Murphy
TIC Volleyball