October 20th, 2013

Under under 18 girls team recently played in the national championships, here is a first hand account of what happened from Rosie:

"Firstly, massive thank you to Annette Whitehead for being such a darling and giving up her time to provide transport and coaching for the team. Also a big thank you to all of the parents who helped out with transport and provided the team with support.   

Despite the early start we were all in high spirits looking forward to the day of volleyball ahead of us. We left Norwich around 7:00am hoping to arrive in London, for our first game, at 10:30am but unfortunately horrendous traffic lead to a massive delay. When we finally arrived we had to pretty much just jump on court and start playing, this didn't seem to be too much of a problem as the whole team performed very well. Beth Whitehead had a particularly good game with some top defences, which ultimately stood us in good stead to walk away with the victory we deserved: Norwich Spikers 2-1 Polonia. 

Unfortunately after our victory the next match wasn't so successful and the early start was beginning to show. Annette Whitehead, our (top) coach for the day, changed the team around showing a great improvement throughout the team. We went into the final set 1-1 and all was still to play for, some digs, sets, blocks and several spikes later it was all over, we couldn't quite pull it round and lost 2-1.

At this point it was a tense waiting game to see whether we had qualified or if we needed another victory to secure our place... Going into the final game against the toughest opponents of the day, we didn't fancy our chances. The whole team put on an incredible show and played exceptionally well as a unit, despite these efforts the score was 2-0 to Malory. Round 2 of the U18's competition seemed to be slipping away. But, fortunately we had done enough to get through!

Well done, roll on round 2!"

Team
Rosie Mills-Smith- Outside(c)
Beth Whitehead- Outside/setter
Sarah Crooks- Outside
Sarah Hanrahan- Setter
Elaenor Ashworth- Setter
Leonie Reintjes-Middle
Hannah Storey-Middle