Saturday saw us make the journey up to Black Country as we made our first ever appearance in the junior Grand Prix series, heading straight into tier 1. After a late change in schedule, we took on Black Country in game number one. We’d already identified this as our toughest game, with them finishing 7th in the country last season, and being a newly formed national league side, missing just a couple of those players. Huge serves from BC meant they pulled away in the first set, giving them a comfortable win without allowing us to get into the game. Some change came in into the second set, introducing some new players, and this saw us improve. We went toe to toe with them for a good duration, but Black Country eventually pulled away towards the end, making the score line look good in their favour, although we already saw improvements in the team. 

After a chance to watch our next opposition, we then took on Cherwell, having regrouped from our first defeat. Cherwell were another top side, including having England players in their side, but some much improved defence, continued consistency from Arjun as the setter and playing smart attacks meant we matched them, but were narrowly edged out in the end. Those players that started the first set left Bruce and I little choice but to keep it the same for the beginning of the second set, knowing we were capable levelling the game. Again, despite this much improved performance from the first game, Cherwell again prevailed, with us seriously unfortunate not to be heading to a deciding set. 

The final game was against a side who had also fallen to both BC and Cherwell in Bristol, with another chance to get in the sets and wins column. A different side started this one, with a ten player squad allowing for plenty of change and rest when needed, or emergency nose bleed cover when an outside has been hit in the face. Those players that came in started well and showed that they wanted their place in the side, and did well to maintain the level of performance that we’d had throughout the previous game. However, Bristol proved slightly too strong in the first set, and prevailed without being squeezed too tightly, to eventually take the first one. The second set saw a very strong start with us steaming into an early lead, and forcing an early timeout to be called. Bristol then picked up and pushed back against us, cutting that lead right down despite our level staying high. A decent run of serves mid way through meant that changes were made, as Bristol took their first lead of the set. They kept this narrow lead as time began to run out for us to win this illustrious set and keep ourselves in it, and despite one last push towards the end, it wasn’t quite enough. 

Although a difficult day in terms of results, as a coach I was delighted with the performance levels by the end of the day. We were working for every ball and not letting things drop, setting well and attacking smartly. We competed superbly against teams that are older, taller, and more experienced than us, and had played together as a team much more than us. For a lot of the boys, this was their first time playing any kind of competitive volleyball and for all of them it was their first time in national junior club competition. Too many individual players to mention, but a big thank you to Bruce for all of his help, but regardless of result immensely proud of the performances the lads put in today. We’ll go again in early December, on a mission to turn those performances into wins on the board. The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.