Satellite Volleyball Tournament 2023

By Danielle Frost, Lily Abbott and Aurora Bettis | Posted: Tuesday May 30, 2023

At the end of Term 1, during summer tournament week both the Senior Girls and Senior Boys A volleyball teams attended the Satellite Volleyball Champs in Christchurch.

After a successful season in A grade school competition, as well as at Otago Champs, they headed away for the week to compete against schools from all over the South Island.

It was a fun tournament, but not without its ups and downs. Unfortunately we had some serious van trouble, making transport difficult, but it didn’t dampen our spirits and both teams had a blast.

What a fantastic group of young people, who represented the school extremely well, with their positivity, sportspersonship, and motivation to perform as best as they could. Everyone improved as individuals and team improvement was noticeable between game 1 and the final games.

The boys team had some amazing wins where they showed their skill, and were also challenged both mentally and physically in games going to 5 sets.

The girls team made the semi finals, finishing 3rd overall. Some close games were taken to 5 sets, where the girls narrowly won in some very exciting and skillful volleyball. It was fantastic having two teams away together as they were able to support each other on and off the court and make the experience even more memorable.

Aside from Volleyball, the playground adventures and gelato were also highlights, as well as the fabulous singing to loud music in the vans on the trip there and back.

They were so enjoyable to coach, and I am very proud of each of them for their individual improvement over the season as well as seeing their team unity grow. They all worked really hard to get to the tournament this year, not only through committing to extra practices, but also by fundraising to get themselves to the tournament.

Congratulations to Lily Abbott who made the Under 19 Otago Volleyball team to travel to Hawkes Bay. Jenah Allum who made the Under 17 Otago Volleyball Squad.

Thanks to Frankie Vella, Erica Steadman, Luke Fraser, Grace Jones and Carli Richter for your effort and involvement as coaches and managers to both teams.  (Danielle Frost)

Fantastic effort from our Senior A Volleyball Girls who recently attended the South Island Secondary schools Satellite tournament in Christchurch.

They came third out of over 20 South Island Schools.

Huge thank you to Carli Richter who has coached the girls for 4 years.

From Monday the 27th till Friday the 31st of March, our Senior girls volleyball team were in Christchurch for the Satellite volleyball tournament as well as our Senior boys volleyball team too. After a long day of driving the day before, on Tuesday we (the girls team) had our first day of playing. Our schedule started with an early morning duty and two games after that.

Our first game was against Rolleston College and we won that game 3-0. That afternoon we had our second game against Rangiora High School and we won that game 3-1. We had a third game that day which was against Te Aratai College which we lost in a hard fought 2-3 match. The next day we had a small sleep in before our game against Villa Maria College which we lost 3-0. We currently stood 4th in our pool and needed to try and be 2nd to make the playoffs. 

While we were passing time and as the results from the other games came through and crunching the numbers, we realised that it would all come down to the winner of our 7pm game as 2nd, 3rd and 4th were very very close together. It all came down to the winner against St Margaret's College. We started with a horrific first set that we lost 10-25 but kept high spirits and came back to win the second set 25-14. We won the next set 25-21 and then the cheerleaders (the boys team) showed up in the middle of the fourth set which we lost on a technical foul 28-30. It all came down to the final set to 15… the score was 15-9 and we won. 

Our cheerleaders went crazy and by that time it was almost 10pm and as we were in the semi finals we had a game at 8:30am meaning we had to completely pack up our accommodation and leave before 7:30am. On our van ride back home, we were on top of the world and singing too loud the whole ride back to camp to eat and pack up. The next morning we woke up sleep deprived but full of adrenaline to find out that our semi final was against a familiar team, Bayfield High School. We lost to them 0-3 but we were still in contention for third. We had a very anxious wait and then our game against Avonside Girls High School started. We started strong and secured the first set 25-19 but lost the second 17-25. By now Bayfield had won their final and came over to support us. We lost the third set 26-28 and needed to get the next set to stay in the game. By now the cheerleaders had arrived and with the extra support and noise from them we won the fourth set 25-16. The only thing left between us and third place was to get to 15 points before the other team. At 8-7 to us, we had to switch sides and after a quick pep talk from Carli and Grace, we entered the court for the last time. Other teams that we versed came to watch and support and our team was focused and determined to win. After a few points going by, the score was 11-9 in favor of us. After a serving streak, we lost the point changing the score to 14-10, match point, with Avonside serving. We passed up their serve to our star setter Aurora and our amazing Hannah hit it over. They passed it up and set the ball deep to our corner. Our super sweeper Lily dove and passed it to our incredible outside Sylvia who tipped it just over the opposition's block. We watched as the ball dropped but it was hard to see if it was in or not. The whistle blew and the point was to us. We all started screaming and jumping and hugging each other. We did it. We got third. The best volleyball result for Logan Park ever and we did it.

Coach Carli, Assistant Coach Grace, Manager Erika, Players Sylvia, Lily, Aurora, Hannah, Maia, Maria, Abi, Jenah, Lily-an.