Phantoms Volleyball Club will take great confidence into their next round of State League on April 27, after experiencing mixed results from their Horsham round matches against Melbourne Uni Renegades.
The club took five wins across the 17 matches but coaches were more than impressed with how their teams performed against high quality opposition.
The showcase match on the Saturday night, featuring the premier men saw history for the club made, when they recorded their first ever premier men’s victory over Renegades in a powerhouse display of volleyball, that had the crowd on their feet in amazement at what the players produced.
“The boys were up for the fight and they didn’t take a backward step,” said coach Todd Broadbent.
“In the past when the boys lost momentum they would just fall away, but to their credit they refused to yield under some pretty intense pressure.”
Whilst the boys couldn’t repeat the effort on Sunday, going down in five in a two hour dog fight, they will take great heart into their next match against Dandenong.
The premier women showed great tenacity in their four set loss in their morning match against Renegades, being first to 23 in the first set and taking the third set, to take their more highly fancied opponents into a fourth set.
“The Renegades women were just too tall in the end with their six footers plus hitters in Athy Henshaw, Xi Xi and Eliza Smith overpowering our girls,” said coach David Berry.
Then the girls let themselves down in the afternoon match going down in straight sets and not showing any fight at all.
“That was the disappointing thing about the result, given how well we played in the morning.”
On the positive side the reserves men scored two hard fought wins to stay undefeated after three matches, and the division two Black team also scored a really good straight sets win to take their record to three and one.
The Reserves girls suffered two losses but had the crowd on the edge of their seats when they served for the match in their Sunday game, only to be denied by a very good Renegades team.
“The girls were great in both matches, especially given that the same team toweled them up in Warrnambool only last month. To fight back the way they did on Sunday after going down the night before shows great character,” said coach Paul Byrne.
The division two girls split their results over the two days, losing on Saturday and bouncing back on Sunday.
“They will take huge improvements into their next game after that win, which was their first for the season,” said coach Vanessa Phillips.
The two young division three teams both suffered losses across the weekend against more experienced opponents, but will take great heart knowing they pushed hard in all their games.
“We were disappointed for them but both teams are full of first year players and they will take some time to adjust to what is required to play at this level,” said women’s division three coach Wayne Symons.
Overall the weekend was a huge success with plenty of people supporting both clubs throughout the weekend.
Volleyball Horsham volunteers and members did a power of work to ensure the success of the weekend and we couldn’t thank them enough.
State League will break for Easter and return with matches at the State Volleyball Centre on April 27.