Australian Junior Volleyball Championships (AJVC)
Western Australia hosted the Australian Junior Volleyball Championships during the week of 5th - 10th July at the fantastic State Basketball Stadium in Mt Claremont. This tournament saw 46 teams entered from 6 states, as well as 2 international teams from New Zealand. WA fielded a contingent of 10 teams, with some wonderful results across all divisions.
This was the 1st year that WA entered 3 teams in the U/17 Women's division, and the WA White team had their first win on Tuesday evening against the 2nd Victorian team. Both the WA Black and WA Gold teams advanced to the Championship Pool (top 6 teams), with the WA Gold team creating history by becoming the 1st women's development team through to this stage of the competition, defeating the top Victorian and NSW teams along the way. The Black team had an incredible week, making it through to the grand final, only losing two games all week to a much more experienced and polished QLD team.
Both U/17 Men's teams also advanced to the Championship Pool, with the Black team narrowly missing out on a bronze medal. The U/19 Men's Black team also played off for a bronze medal, but were unable to defeat SA. In the premier division, U/21, both WA team's made it through to the final. In the U/21 Women, it was a repeat of the 2008 gold medal match; however WA was unable to overcome the Victorian's. It was an even competition between the two teams all week, with some exciting volleyball being showcased to our younger athletes and spectators. In the U/21 Men, QLD were too strong for WA, going down 3-1 in the final.
The final results were:
U/17W Black - Silver medal
U/17W Gold - 6th
U/17W White - 11th
U/17M Black - 4th
U/17M Gold - 7th
U/19W - 6th
U/19M Black - 4th
U/19M Gold - 8th
U/21W - Silver medal
U/21M - Silver medal
Volleyball WA would like to congratulate the following athletes for their selection to the All Star 7:
Simona Koncarevic + Kate Ganz - U/17W
Max Staples - U/17M
Tenielle Ryan, Holly Shorter + Ella Pragt - U/21W
Luke Smith, Rhodri Simmonds + Jack Halley - U/21M
Photos from the tournament can be found at Lumiere Photographics and Western Suburbs Weekly.