Beach Juniors Summary from Head of Delegation - Liz Burdis 

On behalf of all the ACT AYBVC coaches, we would like to congratulate all of our beach volleyball athletes on an excellent 5 days in Coolangatta.  We took away 13 teams which was an increase from 8 teams (16 athletes) last year. Of the 31 athletes this year, 22 were taking part in their first beach volleyball nationals. I am very excited to say that we had 28 wins over the tournament which was an incredible effort particularly with a large number of new players. Sadly, once again, we fell just short of playing in the medal matches. 

Our top result came from the U16 girls (Amanda Uren & Emily Benson) who won 3 of their 5 pool matches to make the round of 12. The girls had an excellent win over VIC in that match 21-16, 21-10, before falling short in the quarter-finals. Sadly they never quite bounced back from that loss to finish 8th overall out of 17 teams. 

Also playing finals was our top-seeded U17 girls' pair (Ruby Archer & Jacinta Tattersall) who won 3 out of 4 pool matches to also make the round of 12. We had some heartbreak in our round of 12 match going down to QLD 11-21, 21-17, 14-16. The girls did bounce back to win the last two matches to finish 9th out of 20 teams. 

In the two weeks before nationals, we lost two players, one to injury and one to illness. We had some good results come from the new pairings, and before I go into more detail we need to thank both Lucy Aboud and Carter Forrester for stepping in last minute to be part of our ACT squad. 

In the U17 boys' competition, Ethan Rayner & Carter Forrester were one win away from making the quarter-finals, which is not a bad effort from two athletes that met for the first time on Sunday. The boys did win their playoff to finish 9th overall. 

The U18 girls also had a late change which saw Charlotte van Gerwen playing with Lucy Aboud. Similarly, the girls needed one more win during the pool play to have progressed through to the round of 12. They did an excellent job in the consolation pool though, winning 3 out of 4 games, and thanks to the other results, finished 13th overall. 

For me, one of my highlights of the tournament was our U18 boys, Lowan Scott & Ryan Watson, and the progress they made over the tournament. Both of these boys were representing VACT for the first time (indoor or beach) and playing against a lot of experienced players. In their early games they were struggling to adjust to the pace of this division, by the end they were defending very well and at their best were playing excellent volleyball. Unfortunately, they still lack consistency, but I hope they continue playing and pushing forward because their best points were so good to watch. 

Probably the biggest improvement of the tournament was the U15 boys, Elijah Boyle, Atticus Fittler & Nuhad Azad. They had a bit of a rough start, but by the end, they were all jump serving and setting up some attacks and winning points. Fingers crossed they'll all be back to have another go at the U15 boys division again next year. 

We had two U15 girls teams play, and they both got a win in the pool play, before playing off against each other in the cross-over games. Gabi Dahms, Leyla Papp, Christina Hunter & Sienna Dy-Mortimer ended up with the win over Riona Azad, Gorochana Babu, Alex Brothers & Sophie Weaver. Both Greg & Annie were impressed with the way the girls went about their games and their progress over the tournament. 

Jenna Sampson & Holly Phillips paired up in the U17 women along with Angelina Hunter & Caitlin Weaver. Both pairs, unfortunately, struggled in the pool play, but they both created opportunities. Jenna & Holly got off to good starts in several sets but weren't able to finish it out, while Angelina & Caitlin won some big, big points but couldn't quite find the consistency needed to win their pool games. On day 3 they both broke through for a win and started to play with some confidence. 

In the U16 boys we had Markus Zarak & Nicholas Carswell take the court. It took them a couple of games to adjust to the level but the highlight was watching them not only adjust but going after points and see both of them putting some really big hits into the sand. The boys finished with two wins, and if it wasn't for those slow starts, could have had a couple more. 

Our last couple of teams were in the U17 boys where we had Zed Wilson & Jackson Murray who were so close and became the pair that seemed to enjoy stressing out the coaches, with 6 of their 13 sets being decided by 3 points or less, unfortunately, we came out on the wrong side of those sets more often than the right side. They did however win their play-offs to finish 11th. Brodie Hawke & Lucas Godden had an unusual preparation, originally selected as the train-on players in the U17 & U16 respectively, and finding out they were going on the last day to enter after a withdrawal they did have a broken preparation, and I have two admit probably the two smallest players in the U17s playing together, that said, they won a few excellent sets by the end and finished 13th out of 14. 

A quick message from our squad captains: Thanks to our knowledgeable coaches and hard work at training, ACT has played competitively against the majority of teams at this year's nationals. Great work ACT! - Zed Wilson 

Well done everyone. The high standard of all games made me feel proud of everybody's accomplishments in this tournament and proud to be representing the ACT. This week proved that playing against the ACT is not an easy win. No matter the outcome of the game, we put up a good fight for every point, but most of all, we enjoyed ourselves.  - Ruby Archer 

One thing stood out in this tournament, and that was the number of comments made about four things: 1. How much the overall level of our teams has improved. 2. How hard our teams were prepared to work, regardless of what the scoreboard showed, we fought for every point and frustrated even more teams than we beat. 3. How respectful our players were. 4. Probably the most important one, how much our players appeared to enjoy playing the game. 

I would like to thank the other coaches (Marko Zarak, Annie Reeson, Greg Ophel & Zoe Tregeagle) not just for their hard work this tournament, but for everything that you did to help these athletes to get here. Thank you to Carmen Tregeagle & Nic Kaiser for their support. We also need to say thank you to all the parents that offered support not just during the tournament, but in the lead-up. Thank you to the train on players, and everyone that came down to play games against us. 

Finally, Charlotte, Lucy, Ryan, Lowan, Ruby, Jacinta, Angelina, Caitlin, Jenna, Holly, Zed, Jackson, Ethan, Carter, Brodie, Lucas, Amanda, Emily, Markus, Nick, Gabi, Leyla, Christina, Sienna, Eli, Atticus, Nuhad, Gorochana, Riona, Alex & Sophie, thank you for letting us be part of your beach volleyball journey and for going all in at this tournament!