Two South East Volleyball Association representative teams recently competed in the annual Horsham Volleyball Tournament.
The major two-day tournament was held across multiple venues and South East Volleyball Association president Ben Clark said around 50 teams from Victoria and South Australia entered.
Clark said it was the first time the association sent a male and a female team together to a tournament and both teams won a match.
“They were not far off of winning a couple more, they were just unlucky in a few points, but they could have won three or four games each,” he said.
The women competed in Division 1 and the men competed in Division 2 with many young players stepping up their game to prove they were competitive against adults, with five of the squad still in high school.
“They were the youngest and most inexperienced squads we have ever sent, we had two high school boys in the men’s team, they did really well playing against grown and 6’ 5” tall men. They did an outstanding job,” Clark said.
“One of the girls was 14 years old in the women’s team, so it was quite big thing for them to be playing against women who play state league in Victoria.
“I hope the confidence they got out of it they take back to our league and pass on all the things they learned from playing at such a high level to help even bring our local competition forward more.”
Clark said he was extremely proud of the two teams and their efforts at the tournament.
“It was just more of getting a group together and it was for the experience but for them both to have won a game and been competitive in several more was way above what we thought we could achieve,” he said.
Clark said association planned to take Under 17 male and female juniors to compete in the tournament next year.
“Our junior numbers have just exploded this year and we have got a lot of quality in our junior ranks,” he said.
“I think they will be highly competitive, we will look to get them together earlier in the year, we will pick some squads and just train them all through the year until this November tournament for the juniors.
“We came back and spoke to the juniors to just get an idea on whether they would be keen to form a squad and they all were a resounding yes.”
Clark said he looked forward to taking the South East Volleyball Association teams back to the Horsham tournament next year along with the juniors.
