ASB Nelson Pine has created history, coming back from one set down to claim its first ever VNZ Club Championship – doing it all in front of a packed Trafalgar Centre on Saturday night.
Nelson Pine captain and setter Patrick Shone says the win was a “dream” for the Colin Redpath-coached squad. The 2012 team included many former stars of Nelson secondary school scene who had left the region to pursue further study. Patrick highlighted the impact playing in front of friends and family had on the side. “We’ve managed to put a programme together where we can have those players from Wellington join with us, who are originally from Nelson,” he says. “That was one of the factors that made it the ultimate win, having those ex local players back playing in front of their friends and family.”
The tournament final was an organisers’ dream with the hometown side facing defending champions Sparta. The South Auckland side had been demolished by Nelson Pine 3-0 in pool play and the final started in a similar vein with Patrick and Ben “Sticky” Glue, who has recently signed a contract in Sweden, linking well to give the Pines a 25-19 first set win. Patrick says it was important to get off to a perfect start as Nelson Pine looked to further dent the confidence of Sparta. “We knew we had their number, we demolished them in pool play but we always knew it was going to be a final where anything could happen. They’re a very good team and we knew they’d come out all guns blazing.”
Sparta battled hard in the second and third sets, edging Nelson Pine 26-24 and 25-22 as the pendulum swung away from the home side.
Knowing it was do-or-die, Nelson Pine regained control to win the fourth set 25-16 and took the fixture to a deciding fifth set, Nelson Pine’s first of the tournament.
Then from seven points down, Nelson Pine claimed the historic 16-14 win to end the tournament as champions for the first time.
There were also plenty of individual accolades for ASB Nelson Pine with libero Jack Redpath being named defender of the tournament, Charlie Stewart was named best passer of the tournament while Patrick was named best setter of the tournament to go with his tournament MVP award.
