Nayland’s sky-high volleyball profile looks set to continue after the junior teams’ performances at the recent South Island Secondary Schools Junior Volleyball Tournament, held in Christchurch on the 26th-28th November.

Three Nayland junior teams participated: the year 9 girls’ team, the year 10 girls and the junior boys team, made up of a mix of year 9 and year 10 students.

The year 9 girls played in division 2 and went on to place 1st out of 26 teams; a spectacular achievement. Coached by Brendan Crichton and Brennan Geddes, they won all of their games, except for the final against an Australian team who couldn’t win the division because they weren’t from the South Island.

“They would’ve been the top year 9 team, definitely,” director of sport Dayna Whiting said. “It was quite cut-throat. If you mucked up in one game that was you done, so our year 9 girls did really well to be able to see that through.”

The year 10 girls played in division 1 and placed a very respectable 5th out of 16 teams. The team was coached by Dayna Whiting and senior volleyball players Brooklyn and Chloe Crichton.

“(...) Coming fifth was a really good achievement because those top four teams were tough teams and we played two of them. We had some really tight battles with both of the teams (Cashmere and Waimea Gold) and we lost certain sets 25-23, really close. So, we were right there but probably just needed a bit more training and a bit more work-ons and the basics and transitions but I think 5th was a really good result,” Dayna said.

The junior boys team, coached by Rosie Dobbe and managed by Steve Teece, played in division 1 and placed 15th. They haven’t been together very long as a team and the majority of them hadn’t played volleyball previously.

“The first game was against Otago Boys A who ended up making the semi-finals (...).They [Nayland] did really well, they were really competitive and right in the game, just till the very end and I think that comes down to experience (...)” Dayna said. “A bit more game time, a bit more experience in those sorts of situations and it could’ve been a different story for them.” The boys went on to play some good, evenly-matched volleyball in their later games.

Other tournament highlights included year 10 Lily Wikaira being named as one of the 10-strong tournament team and Keeley Workman and Ashley Welsh being placed 3rd in the year 9 beach volleyball competition.