The year of coaching is pretty much done, and I have to say it was one of the most challenging, exciting, rewarding and enjoyable years I’ve had in volleyball. Being able to coach so many kids around Victoria at so many different levels has been such a thrill. For the most part it was a very successful year for the majority of teams that I coached.
Since my last post the Girls season at St Michaels has finished and we made the grand finals in five or the six competitions we were in, 7A, 7B, 8A, 9A and 9B, winning every final we played in for five championships! The Open girls (year 10-12) have started their season and will finish it in first term next year. We have had a tough start to the season but with some more training I’m confident we will improve rapidly.
At Billanook College we played in the Open Boys Honours Division at the National Schools Cup in Melbourne in December. We had been training once a week since Victorian Schools Cup for this event. Like all teams our preparation was interrupted by exams and schoolies week but we went to the event feeling good about our chances. Unfortunately though, we never really hit our straps throughout the week. At times we played some very good volleyball, but couldn’t put many matches together at a good level. While we finished a solid 3rd place in Australia there was a lot of disappointment amongst our team, something that I really hope will drive us to get better for another run at the championship next year.
The under 17 boys at Billanook were another story though. We did our preparation together every week from July and they really carried that through to Nationals and won gold after dropping their first 2 games of the event. Winning every game after the first 2 was a great effort and something we can be very proud of.
During the holidays I am coaching a number of teams for the National Junior Beach Volleyball Championships that are held in Perth in early January 2011. I’m pretty confident that they will be bringing home a number of medals. Go VICS!
On the beach, the 2010-11 season has started and is 3 events in. I played the first 2 events with Cedric for one first and one second place, then one event with Chris Burns where we came second.