Waimea Gold bring home silver

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2008

Defending champions Waimea College Gold lost their national secondary school girls volleyball crown on Friday night, downed by Burnside High School in an incredibly tight final in Palmerston North.

Burnside High School wrapped up the competition with a 15-12 win in the last set of a very close match. Final points were 104-99. This was the first time there has been an all South Island final.

Coach Josh Ovensek says the final tournament was “as expected” for the team.

“Burnside are a good strong team. We didn’t play the same game plan we had been playing all week and they really took it to us. We took it to five sets and we pushed all the way which was nice to see.”

He said it did however come to a surprise the team made it so far.

“We weren’t really expected to be in the top this year. Most of the pre tournament talk wasn’t about us having success. We figured we would be really pushing people just to make it through there. We found once we got into the tournament we kind of got into the groove.”

He says the girls were very happy with the final result.

“Nobody wants to lose when they get to a final but to take it to five sets and to have it as close as we had made the girls very happy with the final result.”

Nelson College for Girls took out fifth place against Tauranga Girls College 25-21 in the third set, 77-65 points. A massive leap from their 17th placing in last year’s tournament.

Waimea College boys team came 9th in the boys competition missing out on a point ratio due to a three way tie and Nayland boys came 12th losing to Orewa College.

Over 1900 players attended making it the biggest indoor school sporting event in New Zealand. Four teams from our region competed in the first devision competition.