West Cup - 2010 Events
 
The West Cup is scheduled for its busiest and best year yet with 6 event scheduled for 2010 and already we have teams knocking at the doors to join in for one of the premier Volleyball competitions.
 
This year West Cup is scheduled to run Sunday's on the following dates.
 
1.  February 21st,           2.  March 21st,                3.  May 16th
 
4.  July 25th,     5.  September 12th,       6.  November 7th
 
 
For more information on the July event please Click Here for the West Cup brochure.
 
You can also Click Here for a copy of the team / player application form.
 
Good luck and, most of all, have fun and meet new friends at WS Volleyball.
 
 
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WESTCUP Round II - March 21st 2010

The second West Cup for 2010 was hosted at Penrith Sports Stadium, Cambridge Park. The competition was split into two leagues: Women and Open mixed.    

The Open mixed league included the following teams:

1. Bathurst

2. B.O.O.M.

3. West Ryde

4. Penrith

5. Manly One

6. Blue Mountains

The League was split into 2 randomly drawn pools, with each team playing three qualifying round games. After a number of highly competitive and skilful games, it was clear that all teams had some quality talent with the potential to take out the tournament. After the completion of the round games West Ryde and Penrith came out on top of their pools, with Bathurst and Manly ONE qualifying for the cross over semi finals.

In the first semi final West Ryde was matched up against Manly ONE. Both teams had strong line-ups with a vast array of experience. In a competitive match, Manly ONE's passing and ability to deceive the block through great decision making from their setter seemed to edge out the West Ryde team. The Manly ONE side was the first team to qualify for the West Cup Grand final.

The second semi final was played between Penrith and Bathurst. The Penrith team had gelled together throughout the tournament and had not dropped a set going into the final. Both teams had arguably the strongest outside hitters in the competition who had the potential to dominate the game from all avenues of the court, the matchup was always going to be mouth-watering. As the game went along the Penrith team was able to mix up their finish hitters and keep the block guessing while Bathurst became a little predictable with their spiking plays. Both teams put in a substantial amount of effort, which would show in the following games. Penrith qualified through to the final with a great performance.

The Grand final was a match-up with plenty of history behind it. Penrith and Manly ONE have played in major Grand finals at the previous West Cup and the previous semis and finals of the ACT Good Neighbour competition. Both teams had an incredible amount of desire to win and this was clear in the level of post point celebrations in the early exchanges. Although Penrith had won their first pool game against ONE early in the day the same dominance was not evident in this game. ONE took out the first set, in a tight point for point battle. The second set Penrith game back strong with a switch in strategic positions. They took it and had a bit of momentum coming into the final set. As it turned out the final set went point for point and just looked that either team could of taken it out. Penrith showed their experience in the final points with strong serving, blocking and scrambling to take the third set and the tournament victory.        

The Women's league included the following teams:

1. Side Out

2. West Ryde

3. Panthers

4. Viva Diva

5. Dragons

The Women's league was played in a different format to the open mixed league. With 5 teams entering, the girls all played 4 round games before the top 2 teams qualified for the finals. In the round games there was a clinical display of female volleyball from the Viva Divas, last West Cup champions. The only two teams that came close to them were Penrith Side Out and Canberra Dragons. From the round games the Penrith Side Out team finished in second place with the Viva Divas qualifying first through 4 undefeated games.

In the final the Viva Divas played a clinical opening set. Their setters, who switched at times in the tournament, were creative in the plays they ran. Their dominant hitter, a young Brazilian Beauty, was ruthless in her kill balls and their receiving, scrambling and positioning was almost perfect, which took the wind out of the Penrith sails in the first set. Late in the first set after a time-out Penrith seemed to display a bit more confidence, enthusiasm and teamwork in their general play, although it wasn�t enough eventually going down 25-19. In the second set the Penrith Side Out team transferred their late first set confident play into early second set dominance with some strong put-away spikes and dominating serving. Although with Viva Diva's mix of experience and raw talent they were able to swing the momentum and take out the West Cup Final for the second time in as many attempts.

At the completion of both finals a presentation was conducted by Joe, the President of Western Sydney Volleyball. He awarded all teams their prizes and elected Julian from Penrith as the Open Mixed MVP and the Brazilian Beauty from Viva Divas as the female MVP.

All teams represented were extremely happy with the format, atmosphere and overall competitiveness of the 2nd West Cup and will be looking forward to the 3rd West Cup on Sunday the 16th of May.
 
 
 

WESTCUP Round I - February 21st 2010

Firstly, we hope everyone had a merry Christmas and the New Year is off to a wonderful start. One thing we know for sure was that West Cup this year got off to a great start with some wonderful games and a few new exciting teams.

This year we are running 6 west cup tournaments which will be the most ever in a single year due to the number of teams wishing to join in and the great amount of support we get from our regular teams.

The next one coming soon is on the 21st March 2010 so get in VERY quick if you want to register as a team or a player.

This competition hosted 7 mixed teams (minimum 2 girls / team) and 8 women's teams.

Now for the line up

7 Mixed teams:

1. The Penrith Broncos

2. The Penrith Waratahs (is this state of origin or what?)

3. One (From Manly)

4. R.H.O.L.

5. BOOM (Also from Manly)

6. Bathurst

7. Tigher
 

8 Women teams including:

1. Westside

2. Shorties

3. R.H.O.L. (women)

4. Jaguars (Raining champs)

5. Panthers

6. Viva Diva

7. Side Out

8. Angels

This was one of the strongest team lineups we have seen in a while with the addition of some very strong teams from the Manly and West Ryde areas.

Looking over the team lineups it became fairly obvious that this was going to be a hard fought and evenly matched competition and at the end of the day no one was surprised at how close the competition ended up being.

To accommodate the extra teams in the mixed competition this year, 4 games were played on the Saturday 20th between some of the local teams. It was no surprise that the much favored Broncos with a host of experience and talent (and Joe) took out both Mixed games on the Saturday against the Waratahs and R.H.O.L. However the 2 women's games were much closer and hard fought.

But the main competition was on Sunday and that's when the big guns from Manly, West Ryde, Bathurst and Canberra arrived to take on our local Penrith talent.

When the Broncos comfortably took out a pool game against 'ONE' it seemed that the Bronco's were the team to beat this year and no one was going to stop them. Let's wait and see how that panned out.

While the women's pool games mostly only went for 2 sets it was a lot closer on the court than it appeared on the score sheets. The centre court (otherwise known as the Bermuda court) kept up its reputation for balls mysteriously disappearing when they were going up but never coming down. I think we had 4 balls caught in the overhanging net at one stage.

Once again this season the ever reliable RHOL team showed their usual enthusiasm and wonderful sportsmanship that we have grown to love them for and this year we saw them take it up a level and get a strong 2 -1 win over the Bathurst team. Another few West Cups and a bit of training and these guys might end up in the number 1 spot. But once again, they definitely won the competition for best and loudest supporters. Well done guys.

So after a day of tough games and great sportsmanship, it came down to the women's final. And guess who made the finals for a 4th comp in a row? Yes you guessed it, the Jaguars. Well done girls. But did they have the fire power to take on Viva Diva who went undefeated and at that stage had not even lost a set? Viva Diva looked favorites, but no one who had seen the Jaguars play before was going to right them off.

Early in the 1st set it was Viva Diva up 13 - 2 and it seemed that the Jaguars had no chance against the Diva's. Viva Diva did everything by the book. Great serves, great passes, awesome spiking. I think after the first 13 points even the men's teams were glad they didn't have to face up to them. A time out by the Jaguars slowed the pace a bit and a strong fight back from the Jaguars started but alas it was too lat to stop Viva Diva from taking out a comfortable first set.

Then the second set started. For a minute I thought the teams must have swapped uniforms because the Jaguars came out on fire and played an awesome and disciplined 2nd set. It was almost a role reversal from the first set as Viva Diva fought back late but too late to stop the game going into a 3rd and deciding set.

The 3rd set started even but then the Viva Diva team started to show the brilliance they displayed early in set one and went on a roll that was unstoppable. Never to be denied, the Jaguars fought hard to the last point, but the women's Viva Diva team was as good a team as we have seen yet at the West Cup and will take some beating next time. Viva Diva wins 2 -1.

The Viva Diva setter (a Chinese ex rep player) took out female player of the competition and it was well deserved. She was definitely the standout player and almost every set she made went within a cm of where it was intended.

NOW its time for the Mixed teams to go at it. The favored Broncos team undefeated went up against the Manly 'ONE' team. The Broncos had already defeated ONE in a pool game and went in very confident. But was their confidence a bit over rated? After 2 very close sets the score was 1 - 1 and we went into a deciding third set.

The teams both decided to play a 25 point decider which confused a few spectators who thought it as all over at 15-13 to the ONE team. However, the game went on. ONE for the 3rd set were down to 5 players as one of the ONE girls had one of her ankles injured leaving ONE one short. As she sat on the sideline with her ankle raised, her team mates had a new motivation. They were going to win it for her. You could almost hear the Rocky theme song start to play as the team looked at their injured player and then stared into the eyes of the Broncos. ONE were now playing all for one and ONE for all. (yeah I know, getting a bit corny now).

Both teams fought point for point. They were diving to save balls, making miracle recoveries and the centre shook from the power of the spikes. The spectators cheered between points but during play there was silence from the onlookers. The ONE team held it together and as the end got closer it was ONE who were playing the more disciplined game. In the last few points the Broncos made some critical mistakes and ONE capitalized to take out the last set and the Mixed Final 2 sets to 1. The Manly ONE team were number one and showed they were here to play volleyball. They were maybe coming into the final as underdogs, but they finished as champions. Well done guys and also well done to the other Manly team who were also very competitive on the day.

Joe handed out the trophies to the winners and runners up as well as special awards to the best players from each division.

Pictures of the West Cup for Feb 2010 can be found in the Picture gallery. Please have a look and enjoy.
 
 
Copyright Western Sydney Volley Ball 2010
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