The JSU annual female volleyball tournament started on the 11th of May at C8 volleyball pitch with lot of excitement, the students were happy because it was another time to see the best and most hardworking players of different teams in action.

With the motivation of the coaches and captains as well as the dedication of the players, the team trained for two consecutive months to prepare for the tournament.

The OEC team “Phoenix” consisted of ten female and two male players-

Team members:

Girls-

Riya (Captain),

Flavy,

Solange,

Dallia,

Shazmina,

Joana,

Amelie,

Alice,

Hiba

Zaii.

Boys-

Robin (Coach)

Tinashe B. Takunyayi (Coach)

We cleared group stages without any hitch and grabbed first position at that stage. The quarter finals were good warm up for the team as our opponents gave us some trouble which was an eye-opener but at last we overcame them and were moved to the semifinals.Having been Runners-up for the last three years, we were pretty used to winning till the semifinals without any major problem but this time we were up against School of Pharmacy. In our match against them we faced quite a lot of difficulties, we were even at the edge of losing our streak of winning every match by two continuous set. During the first set when we were losing by 14/18, our coach called for a time out, encouraged everyone to be determined and to put everything they learnt in practiced. The scores for the semifinals were 26/25 and second-set 25/22.

This year we had a team that worked hard and put lot of efforts into practice, so we had much better specs and levels than past years. Our opponents for finals have been same for past three years and every time we could only defend ourselves because we never had spikers before but this time was different because the team was made of people who had perfected their craft individually and worked together very well.

The final match of the tournament began at 4pm at the School Gymnasium. We started slowly and continued till second set while defending, attacking, blocking, pushing and lost by just three points which made us very sad. In the last set we saw a glimpse of future which we can have if we continue training and next time for sure we can grab the Championship Title. Despite the loss, we are proud of our overall performance and look forward to the next Volleyball Tournament, where we will surely bag Gold!

Written by Robin Kapadia