Phantoms players exceed expectations

Asuccessful weekend at the 49th annual Warrnambool Seaside Tournament has fuelled the fire for a stronger presence in state league this season for both Phantoms men’s and women’s premier teams.

With Volleyball Horsham members well represented in both teams, the women’s team won three and lost three games, while the men won one, drew one and lost four three-setters in the competition’s top division.

“Considering we were a new-look team who hadn’t played together, I thought we did really well,” said Volleyball Horsham’s Kara Johnson, who resumed her position in the line-up as the team’s number one setter after missing last year with injury.

The women defeated South Adelaide and Mckinnon to finish fourth in their pool and then accounted for Mckinnon in the elimination final to set up another showdown with the South Australian visitors in the quarter final.

After blowing the first set when leading 23-20, the girls fought hard to win the second 32-30, to set up a deciding set, which went point for point until 10-10. Some strategic serving from South Adelaide created three ace points, which the girls could not fight back from, eventually going down 12-15 in the decider.

“We will be much better for the experience and we look forward to the Ballarat Tournament in two weeks’ time, where we will welcome back the Eason girls Kate and Holly, which should give us more depth,” Johnson said.

For the men it was an extremely pleasing result for the team in all games throughout the round-robin phase of the tournament.

With a draw against Monash, and close games against Eastside Hawks, South Australia’s Austral and Tasmania, the team finished in fifth position sending them to an elimination final against Eastside Hawks.

After Nathan Berry was hit in the warm-up, the team fired up and made life difficult for their opposition both mentally and physically.

“I’ve never seen a team so intimidated to the point where they couldn’t effectively operate and the boys fed off that and absolutely blew Eastside off the court,” said an amazed Jack Exell after the team steamrolled to victory 25-18, 25-13.

The team then squared off against Monash and after dropping the first set 21-25, they fought back to win the second 26-24 to take the game into a decider.

The team played well until 10-10, but couldn’t quite seal the deal going down 13-15.

“We have been coming to this tournament for a number of years now and have been on the receiving end of some pretty big thrashings. To be right in every game this weekend sets us up nicely and we look forward to continuing our improvement when we head to Ballarat,” Exell said.

Phantoms teams are made up of players from across Western Victoria.

With six games under each team’s belt and the prospect of another 4-6 games in Ballarat everyone should be ready to perform come round one of state league, which starts on April 15.