We returned to the Brother Lacey Gymnasium on the 29 May round of co-curricular, hosting Knox in a riveting game of volleyball! Team morale was high and the players were excited to bring home a win for the first time this season. The set-by-set encounter, is as follows:
Set 1: The first set started with a very quick pace, which didn’t work well for either team, who were still warming up. However, the Knox team warmed up faster than Waverley and started punishing us with strong spikes we couldn’t receive. We quickly spotted Knox’s weakness: serving. Most serve attempts would be unsuccessful and would give us easy points. Unfortunately, our communication was very poor throughout the majority of this set, and this led to us making simple mistakes which gave Knox a twelve point lead. After a timeout, we got in the correct headspace and started playing the game with lots of urgency, resulting in four consecutive points from long volleys. The twelve point deficit ended up being too much for us to come back from and we lost the set. Result 25-12.
Set 2: This set started with an unsuccessful serve attempt from Knox. Our urgency from the end of the previous set remained throughout this set, allowing for the game to become much more competitive. Luke Zilich and Hayden Wild served strongly. Strong Knox’s spikes became too difficult for us to receive, so we called a timeout to slow the game down. The timeout was ineffective in slowing the game down, so instead, we quickened the pace and this worked to our advantage tightening the score to 22-20. However, Knox punished our inability to receive their strong spikes and we lost this set. 25-23.
Set 3: Two aces from Louis Liong. Miscommunication on serve receives and miscommunications from the team in general. Majority of our points once again coming from their unsuccessful serves. (Deja vu) 10-6 Knox. Felt like a portion of this set was the first set. 8-15 Our gameplay started to improve drastically, and the overall competitive aspect of the game improved as this happened. A constant message from coach Ms Buchan of ‘strong hands’ really appeared to be understood by the team. Consistently strong hands and huge spikes. Knox’s serves let us back into the game at 13-18. Our constant pressure on the net stopped the Knox players from hitting their spikes which would usually get them easy points. This allowed the score to get to 19-20, the closest it had been throughout the whole game. The change of pace made the Knox team call a timeout to try to sway the momentum of the game. Unfortunately, the Knox timeout was beneficial and allowed the game to go back in their favour. 25-22 Knox.
Please come down to the College gymnasium and support the 1sts students play against Cranbrook this weekend at 10am!
By Christian Kitas Year 11 Roving Sports Reporter for Volleyball
Ms Belinda Buchan
Convenor of Volleyball
E: bbuchan@waverley.nsw.edu.au
