Trevor Jackson
THE South East Volleyball Association has classed its first tournament a huge success.
Teams from Melbourne and Adelaide joined others from Mount Gambier at the Mount Gambier High School in men’s and women’s divisions.
Mount Gambier side VIP claimed the honours for the women, while a team from Melbourne – Karreni – claimed the men’s honours, with Mount Gambier runner-up.
SEVA president Ben Clark was pleased with the inaugural effort, which quickly changed from an in-house competition to a wider interstate tournament.
“It was our first-ever tournament and was going to be an in-house one to dip our toe in the water and see how we went running a big tournament,” he said.
“We think we ran it well enough we can now look to make it an annual thing, put the word out and attract people so we can go even bigger next time.
“Other people were keen to participate but we just wanted to see how we would go with the first one.
“It was a really successful weekend.”
Clark said the association decided to change the format from the usual six-a-side to what he described as a big-bash style.
“We only had four players on the court instead of six and we shortened the time of the game to try something different,” he said.
“I think it was a good decision.”
With a $1000 prize pool up for grabs, split evenly between the winning men and women, Clark said there was no shortage of competition.
He said the weekend provided a good chance for those competing in the Mount Gambier competition to test themselves at a higher level and under plenty of pressure.
“The women had to play three games almost back-to-back and they kept pushing themselves,” Clark said.
“A lot of our men were high school kids going up against big guys who were hitting it hard.
“They pushed those teams right to the limit and a lot of them went above what I have seen them do on a Monday night here.”
“It is good to see these kids can go away to tournament and represent us.”
Clark said the tournament was an eye-opener for many of the Mount Gambier players, with the majority having never competed above the local level.
With coaches in place for both the men and women, Clark said the association is now looking to move the tournament forward next year and hopefully attract even more players.
“We will look to change the date for next year to fit everyone in, possibly as a lead-in to our season and a lead-in to the other major tournaments,” he said.
“We hope to attract people to Mount Gambier before they head off to the big tournaments.”
As for the tournament itself, Clark said considering it was the association’s first attempt at running such an event, he is pleased with the outcome.
“We have gone through everything from the weekend and we class it as a major success,” he said.
“We have some things to work on to make it better and other things to simply go on with.”
