SVL 2014 Week 4 Update

The end of financial year weekend saw week 4  action happening at the Olympic Park Sports Halls.  The anticipation for World League was in the air, so teams were looking for good games ahead of this short break.

In the men…
Honours Men White went down in 5 to Sydney West
Mens Division 1 had a tough double header round, going down 3:0 to UNSW, then going down 3:0 ISCV
Division 2 went down 3:1 to USYD
Junior boys went down 3:0 to SNV

In the women…
Womens Honours beat Dragons in another 5 setter
Womens Div 1 beat Santa Sabina 1 3:1
Cougars & Cubs beat ISCV 3:0
Womens Div 2 beat Endeavour 3:0
Santa Sabina 2 went down 3:1 to UNSW
Santa Sabina 3 beat UNSW2 3:0
Santa Sabina 4 beat SNVE 3:0
Santa Sabina 6 beat SNVS 3:0

Updates provided by teams are below:

 

Div 1 Women (from Keith)
A nervey start against the young UTS Santa Sabina team saw our girls drop the opening set, and even get ourselves in bit of a hole in the second. A huge rally late in the second, and some tense moments deep into the mid twenties meant scores were leveled at one set all.  Set 3 saw a massive serving run from Natalia which, while entertaining and a way to win a set, didn’t really let us feel like we played that much.  Set 4 was an even affair, but we came out on top to take the match 3:1.
Special thanks to Claire Lu for joining us for the game.

Div 2 Women (from Jali)
Round 4 of SVL was a great team win for the div two girls, we played up to three sets and won each! Ilk joined our team as libero for the first time and sadly to say this was Lisa’s final game with us, she has played remarkable during her time with the team and we thank her so very much. Unfortunately jess was also not here as she was sick, Yulia was doing something else and Ali is still living it up in London.
Deb this week decided to shake things up on the court, Claire had a go at being setter and did a fantastic job and a few other positions got switched around on the court providing solid entertainment! Everyone played great on the court, keeping the team morale up as well as excellent support from the sideline (thanks to Yoshi as well).
We had great defensive plays from Ilk and Kim, Claire also taking to the floor on a few occasions. Lisa brought her A game when it came to serving, the other team had no idea what hit them. Excellent attack from Irene and Marlene, and of course great plays and setting by Claire and Verena switching up different plays using everyone on the court even the back court. Overall it was great team work and effort by everyone! Thanks to deb for your wonderful coaching, everyone is improving excellently! Serving has picked up and the white shirts dominate again!
Results Womens Div 2 UTS against Endeavour
1st set- 25:14
2nd set- 25:12
3rd set- 25:11

Junior Boys (from Clara)

With the two junior teams playing at the same time this week, the 19’s boys had to step up to the challenge. We had a newly appointed setter taking charge of the play making side of the game and other boys playing in positions that they have not played before. Communication and a lack of aggression got the better of us, leading to the boys getting a bit frazzled and we lost the first set.

Set number two we made one change to the line up and wanted to go out there with an eagerness to change our downfalls from the first set. With some good defense, a bit more communication and some missed serves from the other side of the court, the set was point for point, only narrowly losing after losing focus towards the end of the set.

Once again, we changed the line up again to allow the boys to play in a couple of different positions and to share the court time around. Our main focus for this set was to get more aggressive, as we played it very safe in the second set. We had a great start with the boys being strong at the net and holding the serve. Unfortunately a bit of confusion with court positions and not enough communication lead to the team losing the third set.

Even though the boys lost the game, they stepped up and took on the challenge of playing without any support from the more experienced boys and gave North Sydney a run for their money. Well done boys!

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SVL 2014 Round 3 Update

Round 3 of SVL is now done. How is your team doing?

In the men…
Honours White went down 3:0 to UNSW
Div 1 went down 3:0 University of Sydney
Div 2 beat Eagles 3:1
19’s went down 3:1 to Dragons 1

In the women…
Honours went down 3:2 to Manly (MWVA)
Div 1 went down 3:0 to Dragons 1
Cougars & Cubs beat UNSW 3:0
Div 2 beat Eagles 3:0
Santa Sabina 1 went down 3:1 to Dragons 2
In the 19s, Santa Sabina 2 beat Santa Sabina 3 by 3:1
In the 16s, Santa Sabina 5 beat UNSW 3:1,
Santa Sabina 6 beat Santa Sabina 7 3:0, and
Santa Sabina 8 went down 3:0 to Sydney North

 

Cougars & Cubs (from Jess)
On Sunday the 22nd of June the UTS Cougars and Cubs came up against last year’s SVL div 1 champions, UNSW. It was out first early morning game of the season and we were not sure how our bodies would hold up. It seemed the cold weather was not helping during the first set as everyone was able to get their first serve in but struggled with their second, lucky we were able to hold it together and win the set comfortable 25-17. With some great attacking from Yoshi (lets hit the ball so hard and fast the lines person will miss it) and Nardia (I like having 100 different UTS shirts to wear) on the outside and some big hits through the middle from Cat, Amanda and Kristen we were able to win the second set comfortable 25-12. Although we were 2 sets up we all know UNSW never gives up and loves to take UTS to five sets. Lucky for the cougars and possibly the cubs we were able to hold our game. With coach deb subbing on for Yoshi to play outside (even though she would of preferred to play middle), strong passing from Dani (lets not forgot the loud calls) and Joey spending more time diving on the floor and leaving the setting in Jen’s hands we won the third set 25-19. Although I don’t think we ever warmed up due to the freezing cold weather, it was a successful game. Well-done ladies.

Div 1 Women (From Keith)
An early morning start was too early for some (a lost phone meant a missed alarm…), but otherwise we were all ready to go.  Unfortunately our opponents were also very ready to go. The 3:0 (75:56) scoreline shows that we were beaten pretty solidly, but is perhaps a little unfair.    While we did play some good volleyball in places, we made far too many simple errors on our side of the net.  Work to do for our girls, but we know we can get better.

Div 2 Women (from Kim)
Round 3 of SVL was remarkable good for our Womens Div 2 team. We played 3 sets in total, all of them dominated by ourselves. With both our libero’s not being able to play (Ilk: You are too busy!; Ali: We hope you’re having fun in London!) we got help from Katie who plays for the NSW U17’s. With a strong libero as part of our team we not only started off strong, but we were also able to keep it up till the end. Each team member was able to play a significant part in this game:
Great defence/passing – Katie and Marlene
Nice blocks and great tips – Jali and Irene
Saving tricky balls – Lisa
Powerful attacks – Yulia and Claire
Saving average passes by setting well – Verena
Also: Thanks to Deb and Jess we are now able to put the setting calls into use more frequently!!! 😉 Although we should make sure to ALWAYS call them out LOUD ENOUGH (apologising to Verena!), we did see some quick balls today, smashing middle hits into the floor.
With almost no serving errors (!!!) and a all over great team effort we are looking forward to our next round, where we hopefully can show off again! GO UTS! WHITE SHIRT SUPERPOWER!
Results Womens Div 2 UTS against Eagles:
1st set – 25:7
2nd set- 25:16
3rd set – 25:8

 

Junior Boys (from George & Clara)

This week both of our Junior teams took out their gleaming new white tops for the first time. First up, our U19 Men played against Dragons 1 and put up a really good fight, with even one set going point for point past 25:25 and giving our young boys a taste of some nailbiting tough volleyball. Eventually we went down in 4 sets to a more consistent Dragons team, but we left the court with our heads held high knowing we played some good volleyball this week. Special mention of our new ‘setter-in-training’ Khyle Blando, who did a great job playing setter for the first time and to our new ‘super-libero’ Matt Rennie, who did great playing his first match as a defensive backcourt specialist. Well done boys, you did your team and parents proud. Also, a big thanks to all of the parents who came to cheer the team on… we really appreciate your support!

Clara gives the U19’s Junior Boys a big rev-up during a critical timeout

In the 2nd match, our Div2 Men played against the Eagles with a battle of the cousins ‘Le v Le’ on opposing sides. (Danny vs Richard) We came out strong in the first 2 sets playing some great volleyball, but lost a bit of focus in the 3rd and then managed to regroup in the 4th set, to take out the match for our first win of the season! Special mention of our new passer-hitter-libero and all-round nice guy, Jon Yaw for bringing his enthusiasm and great spirit into the team and we welcomed back Samuel Tifa to the middle, after his recovery from a neck injury a few months ago. Great teamwork all around boys and congrats on your first win of SVL!

Div 2 Juniors inspired by their idol Alberto Flamigni, for this shot in their new off-court gear

After the match we handed out some of the players’ kit including our new polo-shirts and training tops, and proudly posed for some team pics in our new outfits. Thanks again to Deb, Nam & UTS for spoiling us with all the new UTS clothing… how good is it to play for a club that looks after its juniors 🙂

Results:
UTS-U19M def by Dragons 1, 18:25, 25:16, 26:28, 14:25.
UTS-Div2M def Eagles, 25:18, 25:22, 17:25, 25:17.

UTS Junior Boys Players’ Kit including 2 Playing Shirts (Black/White), 2 Training Tops, 1 Polo-Shirt off-court/duty uniform

Caption:

Canberra World League Road Trip – June 2014

Rather than tell a whole bunch of loosely connected stories that happened from the weekend…
and there are a few…
and many of them we couldn’t put on here anyway…
Instead, please enjoy a collage of pictures from our weekend.

Like any good road trip, it starts with a car ride (good story about the other photos in this series if you know it)

Getting to the hotel to get into our onesies.

 

We tried to butter up the referee on the way in (it didn’t work)

Listening to the pre-match entertainment – James Blunt!

 

And he wanted a onesie of his own

But what he really wanted was to be part of the group

Then we settled in to watch the matches

Kids and all (way to go Emma…)

 

And we even had a special guest among us! Current Volleyroo squad member Paul Carroll!

 

Plus some other international…

Some of us were louder than others during the game (and the singing of the national anthem)

But we were hardly going to be a quiet, sedate, sitting still sort of group of supporters

Some of us really rocked it (Loved the anthem Nam! Very Hendrix)

 

But the dancing kangaroos was the money shot the TV cameras wanted

We were certainly noticeable in the crowd

And we won! Which means we were always a chance for a photo or 2 with a smiling player. Thanks Thomas Edgar!

He is tall by the way. But he was standing next to some fairly short volleyballers.

Thanks heaps to Deb for organising us all to get down there. We had a great time!

Can’t wait for the Sydney round, coming up on 5th/6th July and then the finals on 11th & 12th July!

See you there!

SVL 2014 Round 2 Update

A tougher day for the club in round 2. Plus a div 1 women’s derby.

Honours Men Black went down in 5 to UNSW
Honours Men White went down 3:0 to Sydney Uni
Honours Women went down in 5 to UNSW
Div 1 Men went down 3:1 to Dragons
Cougars & Cubs beat the Div 1 UTS Women 3:1
Div 2 women won 3:1 over Sydney North
Div 1 Women UTS SS won 3:0 over Illawarra
19 Men went down 3:0 to Sydney West K
19 Women SS 4 went down 3:0 to Sydney North
19 Women SS 5 went down 3:0 to UNSW
16 Women UTS SS 7 beat SS 8 3:0
16 Women UTS SS 6 beat SS 5 3:0

Full results for the round can be found here:

Honours Women (from Wendy)
Round 2 was disappointing we lost 3-2 against UNSW. We started off poorly, just could not pass a ball or get any sort of rhythm. We struggled in the first set which we lost 25- 15, had trouble siding out. After good pep talk from the coach girls started playing own game. Good consistency of passing really helped a lot to utilize our team height in front court. We had some good hitting through the middle and outside / universal hitters. Sticking to our game plan is all we needed, to boost the girls spirit. Fourth set we started off a bit shaky once again, better passing but the hitters couldn’t not finish the point as UNSW defense were unstoppable. Few highlights from that set great pick up by Caroline, which caused an overpass for me to crank the ball in the 3 meter line. Awesome hits from the outside hitters. Unfortunately we lost the 4th set, which took us to fifth set.
Fifth set we lost concentration with too many errors and we managed to come back at the last couple of points. By then it was too late we had lost the game. Our main focus for the next round we need to start stronger as a team and also remember to move our feet.

Div 1 Women Cougars & Cubs ( from Jo)
Cougar and Cubs faced the might of Keith Suckling’s “training” div 1 team at round 2 of SVL on Sunday. After a little bit of trash talk through the week on facebook (and no, not from myself and Sucky), it was time to see what each team had and who would come out on top.
The first 2 sets saw us punish the training UTS team with strong serving, accurate passing and smart hitting/tipping options from the Cougars and Cubs. Before we knew it we were up 2 sets to nil, winning 25-16, 25-15.
Coach Sucky must of said some stern words between sets to his team, as the 3rd set saw an improvement from his team, especially in serving and defense and we lost that set in a very close one 24-26.
The 4th set was also extremely close and could of gone either way, but the experience of the Cougars and the strength in blocking and hitting from our middle ‘cub’ hitters proved to be the difference, winning this set and the match 25-23 in 4 sets.
So, 2 wins from 2 games and the “non training” Cougars & Cubs are off to a flying start to the SVL season!
Oh & shots tally is
Jo – 1
Yoshi – 1

Div 1 Women (from Sucke)
Our team had a relatively slow start in this game and dropped the first 2 sets to the Cougars & Cubs fairly quickly & cheaply.  Set 3 saw us start to put some of the things we have worked on into practice and we produced some really good volleyball, which we then continued with into the 4th set.  While we did eventually go down in 4, we were really happy with our play for the second half of the game and we know that we can still get better. Hopefully that training advantage will kick in next time around.

Junior Boys (From George & Clara)
This week our Div 2 Men had a bye, whilst our U19’s had another early start, due to a duty at 9am. The U19’s played against a much taller SWV-Khalsa and although we did a lot of scrambling in the back court, we weren’t able to keep up with them when it mattered. Many thanks to Deb and Nam for our brand new uniforms, our boys look great on court and are wearing them very proudly!
Results:
UTS-U19M def by SWV-Khalsa, 20:25, 23:25, 14:25

UTS U19 Junior Boys Team (with a few fill-ins from the Div 2 team)

Side By Side: Volleyball In Australia

One of our up and coming junior players, Matthew Jigalin, put together this video as part of a school project. It features several members of the club.

Great work Matt!

 

 

Junior Boys Update: May 2014

As we start the SVL season, we thought it would be good to share with you how our new Junior Boys program is going and the progress we have made since our last report in December 2013. We are proud to say we currently have 17 boys who have joined the program and are now junior members of the club. Originally we thought we would be scraping to make just one team this year, but after a little bit of marketing, use of social media and a lot of word-of-mouth amongst various groups, we have been able to come up with a roster of 2 teams in this year’s SVL competition. One team has a range of juniors with more experience, whilst the other is made up of school volleyball players, who are new to SVNSW volleyball. For this reason, we will have a Div 2 Men’s team for the more experienced junior players, and the other team will be entered in the U19 Junior Division of SVL. We also will be able to let some players move up and down as the teams need players, and to provide opportunities for the new players to experience senior volleyball. One of the big areas of focus for us as coaches, is to ensure all players can play in more than one position, and in particular we have been making an effort to get everyone to learn how to set the ball. You might be surprised to learn we have middles who can play libero, setters who can play outside hitters, liberos who can play as setters, and some of our middles can even do a great job as setters. This will allow the boys to play in different roles, depending on the team and will let them experience different skills, so they can decide at a later stage if they want to specialise in one role or continue with dual skills.

Training Program

We train every Tuesday night at the UTS Multi Purpose Sports Hall Underground Stadium at Ultimo from 5.00 – 7.00pm. The venue is ideal for our junior boys as a lot of them travel via public transport after school, and its close proximity to Central Station makes it safe for the boys to travel. Each week we focus on different skills development and/or game play. We have been supported by various senior UTS coaches, namely Alberto Flamigni and Artem Ipatyev, who each brings their own unique style (and accent) as guest coaches from time to time. Keith Suckling has also provided specialist setting coaching to our up and coming setters. All of the boys really appreciate having different coaches come to our trainings and offer their words of wisdom.

Tournaments

The UTS Junior Boys played in 2 tournaments leading up to SVL. Firstly they played in the Manly Cup and last weekend the team boarded the UTS Minibus and headed down to Woollongong for the NSW State Cup 3. These tournaments were a great way for the boys to experience senior competition and coaches were able to test our different player/role combinations and develop the team in a real competitive environment. Thankyou to Artem, Alberto and Dan for offering their support during these tournaments and sparing the time to talk to the boys and give them some great advice. Special thanks to Clara for juggling her own playing commitments in the Womens Honours team, and still managing to get to court side to coach the team.

Friendly Matches

We have organised several practice matches to give our juniors valuable match experience as follows:

Match 1: UTS Juniors vs NSWU17s at NSW Junior Development Camp

Match 2: UTS Juniors vs NSWU17s at UTS Ultimo

Match 4: UTS Juniors vs UTS Intervarsity Team

Training prior to Match 3: UTS Juniors vs NSWU17s at SBHS. Tally is 1:2, so we hope to make it best of 5 matches 🙂

Match 4: UTS Juniors vs UST Div 1 Men at SBHS (Juniors pulled out a surprise win, 2:1)

Player Development

It is important we provide all of the boys a development pathway, based on their experience and needs. For some, just to play SVL this year will be a big step. For others, playing in Div 2 against adults will be a new experience. We also hope that some time in the future, some of the more experienced boys will have an opportunity to train or perhaps play with some of our senior teams in higher divisions, and learn from other coaches and players. We also hope more of our juniors will be able to join State teams in the future and experience representing NSW at national competitions.

UTS Junior Boys Team from NSW State Cup 3 Illawarra

Thankyou to everyone at UTS for all of your support. Special thanks to Deb Chung, Nam Pham, Keith Suckling, Jo Kelly, James McRae, Gregor Salvin, Dan Gauci, Artem Ipatyev, and Alberto Flamigni for your continued support. Also, thanks to Jeff Horn for stepping in as team manager when we compete at tournaments and helping us organise the teams to compete.

Clara Loth & George Jigalin

Junior Boys Program Coaches

SVL Week 1 Update

June 1 saw week one of SVL out at Homebush.  A Rotary event made parking a challenge, but the light of cauldron warmed our hearts in the drizzly weather.

Some quick results…

Men’s honours Black won in 5 after being up 2:0.

Men’s Honours White came back from 2:1 down to win the final 2 sets  (40points to 17) and take their match 3:2.

Women’s Honours won in 3:1 after a hiccup in the second set.

Women’s Div 1 had a 3:1 win, after dropping the 3rd set.

Women’s Div 1 Cougars & Cubs had a solid 3:0 win.

Women’s Div 2 had a dominant 3:0 win keeping their opposition below 17 each set.

Men’s div 1 had a bye.

Men’s Div 2 lost 3:1 after levelling 1:1.

The 19men lost 3:1also after levelling at 1:1

 

Honours Women vs Sydney Uni (from Clara)

After a great finish to the pre-season tournaments, the honours team was keen to bring that fighting spirit into SVL.
We started out the game with a very strong lead, our serves and hit’s keeping them out of the game. Even when the serve was lost, we came back with some great defense and put the ball away, winning the set very convincingly.
In the second set, complacency got the better of us and Sydney uni started to pick up on our attack plays. We had a few lapses in passing and defense, but managed to bring the score back to near level, narrowly losing the second set 25-23.
Third started off very shaky with UTS unable to side out due to some strong, tough serving from Sydney uni. When we finally won the serve back, we answered right back at them with some epic hitting, setting and serving, allowing us to re-gain the lead. We then managed to keep the lead and take out the third set.
By the 4th set, the ladies had well and truly become consistent with their tough serves, keeping Sydney out of the game. Captain Wendy managed to serve for about 50% of the set, the opposition losing all confidence with their passing which lead us to our first victory of SVL.
Well done girls!

 

Div 1 Women Cougars & Cubs vs Sydney North (from Deb)

UTS Cougars and Cubs started off our 2014 SVL season in fine fashion on Sunday with a straight sets win against a steadily improving Sydney North (SNV) team in the Division 1 women’s competition. With a squad of 10 players, we were only missing our star libero, Dani Rogerson (chasing criminals again!). As I put together the line up, I came to the realization that our 10 players included 5 middle hitters – a very rare, but good ratio!
With Haley Johnson nursing a minor injury, Yoshi Ueda and Nardia Guillaumier came through with solid passing and hitting to help us take out the first set relatively easily. The 2^nd set proved to be more difficult with SNV lifting their game and taking an early 5 point lead. No panicking from the Cougars and Cubs (most of us are too old for that) occurred and we clawed our way back with some strong serving to be even at the 16 point mark and then surged forward with some great blocking from Kristen Manchester, Cat Stalmachowski and Jess Reardon who happily got to play universal. Amanda Gigliotti took the court in the middle position for some “training” after a 3 year absence from the game and managed to fit in seamlessly to the team, showing some great work at the net.
Haley Johnson replaced Yoshi Ueda in the 3^rd set so that she could leave to assistant coach the Honours Women’s team. Despite some very tight passes from the libero (sorry Joey and Jen!), Joey and Jen managed to get some great jump sets in, drawing the block to give our outsides, Haley and Nardia and our universals, Jess and Amanda some great one on one opportunities that they capitalised on. We managed to take out the 3^rd set convincingly to finalise the match 3-0. A great start for the season girls – let’s keep it up!

 

Div 2 Women (from Yulia)
The division two girls had a successful first game on Sunday 1/6/14. We played well and won in 3 sets. The girls were serving strongly and hitting consistently. Our training sessions definitely helped us win. Thanks Deb and Jess.

 

Junior Boys (From George & Clara)

Both of our Junior Boys teams started off their inaugural SVL season with much excitement and anticipation. First up was our U19’s Boys with an early 9.00am start against Dragons 2, who were just too strong for us, even though we gave a good fight going down in 4 sets. In our 2nd game our Div 2 Men played against Super Sikhs and although we played a very close game, with lots of great plays, we ended up going down in 4 sets as well.
Results:
UTS-U19M def by Dragons 2, 15:25, 25:18, 16:25, 19:25.
UTS-Div2M def by Super Sikhs, 21:25, 25:17, 21:25, 20:25

UTS Junior Boys doing mind warm-ups with Rubik’s Cubes at SVL