Warrnambool 2005 - Div 1 Women.
A
wonderfully experienced team went to Warrnambool in
2005 - Cheryl,
Kylie, Lisa, Lyn, Nadia, Vera - and we
welcomed Jan Fletcher -
Victorian Junior & Korumburra
Representative. We had good wins
throughout the rounds
and met Bendigo Academy in the Monday final. They
played very determined volleyball, while we worked hard
to combat their
efforts. In the end we won a close game
which did not show in the sets
scores of 3-0. Yay a win!
Lisa passing for our next attack.
Warrnambool 2005 Division 1 Womens
Champions
Lisa, Cheryl,
Kylie, Jan, Vera, Nadia & Lyn.
World
Masters Games 2005
Edmonton, Canada - 30+ Women.
2 and a half years in the planning culminated in
Phantoms
playing and
spreading their volleyball prowess overseas
over the other side of
the world - 30 hours flying time.
We were represented by Cheryl, Lisa,
Maree, Rosemary &
Sabine - all girls who had played with Phantoms
in the
past - and to round out our team, we recruited 3 players
over
the Masters website - all Canadians! We welcomed
to Phantoms, Brenda
Petrie - University of Calgary
Representative - plays Power/Middle and
is a teacher
who lives in Tomahawk, Alberta Canada. Elaine Noonan
represented local teams, plays Power Hitter and is a
Librarian who
lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada
and Melanie Gukert - Southern
Alberta Institute
of Tafe Representative, plays Power Hitter and is a
Part-time Flight Attendant and also works from home
in a Design
business!
Melanie
arranged for us to have a 2 hour training at
SAIT. We presented the
Canadian girls with an Opal &
Iron Ore pendant each and a packet of
Tim Tams was
shared - brought over by Sabine - very important in
the
bonding process and as such - found us all combining
well within 30mins
of the start of training! Melanie also
presented us with some SAIT
Black Shorts we could
wear for the Games, as well as a pin and
Volleyball from
the Women's Volleyball team at SAIT - Ooks (Its an
owl)!
Training finished well and after a short break, we headed
over to
the Butterdome and the University of Alberta
to have our 45min session
on the game courts against
the Australian Volleyball Warehouse girls
who had come
over with Shane Purvis and his Men's team. A good hit
out
and even a little more game time against another
40+ Women's team was
enough to have us feeling
comfortable playing together.
All
the other teams in our 30+ Division are Canadian
teams, so the next day
we played out first game against
Wild Roses and had a good win with all
the girls playing
well with us winning 3-0. More particularly, the Tim
Tams
that Sabine arranged for each team went down a treat!
Later that
day we played Prairie Girls - Shane's
sister - Kaisha - played with
them and it was a tough
game with Prairie Girls winning 1-2. We were
disappointed
with our efforts after our good start, but we just had to
get ourselves together for the next day. Our first game
was early
against Rocky Mountain Royals - they were
singing and running around
like crazy people - we didn't
know what to expect. During the 1st set,
we played
really well and won convincingly. The 2nd set was another
matter with us being 0-9 down, we had a couple of subs
and managed to
come back and win the set in the end.
A good effort from the whole
team. Later we played
Crankin' Cougars and played a solid game winning
3-0.
Our last game was incidental in deciding where we would
finish in
our pool - we were going to be second. Our last
game was against
Netmasters, a quality team who ended
up winning 1-2 against us.
The
draw was quite confusing from here on in as it turns
out the organisers
used a double knockout system of play
once the pool matches had
finished - lose twice and you
are out. Played Prairie Girls again and
reversed our round
game - this time with a win. Our next game was
against
Storm who - like Netmasters - were a terrific team
and we were
unable to sustain our good play losing that
game. We came up against
Rocky Mountain Royals
again - looking forward to more of the same like
the
previous day - but it wasn't to be - they came out a
different side
and their Captain No 10 played like a
woman possessed! We were beaten
and out of the World
Masters Games - we finished 7th overall out of 12
teams.
It was a wonderful experience and terrific to play with
girls
from another country. Brenda, Elaine & Melanie
welcomed us, our
culture and our volleyball team with
open arms and gave us so much in
our short time together,
a wonderful experience for all.
Phantoms
MVP - Winner: Cheryl Moore - R/Up: Maree Bibby
3rd: Sabine Palmer
And
you thought it ended there..............not quite.
World Masters Games 2005
Edmonton, Canada - 30+ Women's Beach Volleyball.
We
had a day's break, then Lisa & Maree bravely went
on to play Beach
Volleyball - this was Phantoms first
time in a tournament - we were
called "Phantoms on the
Beach". We played 3 games in the first day -
really
hard to jump after 3 full days of indoor - and we managed
to
finish 2nd in our pool of 4 teams! This put us into
the winners pool -
the top 2 teams from each pool on
the first day. We played another 3
games and finished
2nd again - talk about things going your way! This
mean't
we were only 2 games from a guaranteed medal...
....oh my. We
moved to the double knockout rounds
again like we did in indoor and on
the 3rd day, we
played the other Aussie girls - Kaisha (who had played
indoor with Prairie Girls) and Yvette who was from
Western Australia.
We won 2-0, so now we only had
to win one more game. We watched the 2
teams who
were playing on the other court to see who would be
playing
us - the better team were down 11-14 in the
3rd set, but came back -
unfortunately we couldn't win
against them, so onto our next game. This
went the
same way, but both Maree & Lisa gave it their all
and
finished 5th overall.
Brenda spikes one through the
centre against Crankin'
Cougars with Mel,
Maree, Cheryl & Rosemary covering.
Cheryl's blocking form won us some
great points
Lisa puts one away from Sabine's
set
in our Semi
against Prairie Girls
Mel takes on Rocky Mountain Royals
blocks
backed up by
Brenda, Lisa, Maree & Sabine
Phantoms Women's 30+ World Masters
Team
(Back) Maree,
Cheryl, Lisa, Brenda & Rosemary
(Front) Melanie,
Sabine & Elaine
Lisa & Maree at the Beach
Volleyball
Australian
Masters Games 2005,
Adelaide - 35+ Women.
Backing up again in 2005, our team was Cheryl, Deanne,
Lisa, Lyn,
Nadia, Rossy & Vera. We played Sydney Tigers
first up and lost 1-2
in a tough game. We won all our other
games in the rounds apart from
Crows Feet who had a
number of ex-Australian players and lost 1-2 in a
fantastic game which came right down to the last few points.
Lisa had
food poisoning on the night before the finals,
so the team went without
her to play our last game against
NT Geckos which put us into our first
ever Gold Medal
playoff at a Masters Games. We came up against Just
Vintage who we had beaten comfortably in the rounds.
We went into the
game with the same plan as the rounds,
with Lisa being ill, we had not
considered the tables would
turn on us in this important game. The 1st
set, Just
Vintage came out and found all our holes on court, we
tried
hard to come back but just couldn't. The 2nd set
was more of the same
and at the start of the 3rd, Lisa
couldn't play anymore with little
food and sleep the
previous night. The 3rd set was just the same with
Just Vintage playing solid volleyball - we were no match
for them this
time around, and we came away with
the Silver medal.
Phantoms
MVP - Winner: Nadia Tkaczuk - R/Up: Cheryl Moore
3rd: Vera Rava
Australian Masters Games 2005 - 35+ Womens
Runners Up
Lisa, Deanne, Lyn, Nadia, Cheryl & Rossy
Bendigo
Dragon City 2005 - Div 1 Women.
Not
since our first tournament at Horsham back in 1998,
had we gone away
with a junior side. Our Monday night
GAVA team were keen to play
together in a tournament,
so we entered Bendigo - we were represented
by Cheryl,
Lisa, Lyn, Michelle and we welcomed Eden Lebbos
(age 15) -
Local Junior Representative and Phantoms
Local player, Skye DaVinci
(age 21) - Bellarine
Representative and Phantoms Local player and Tayla
Lebbos (age 13) - Local Junior Representative and
Phantoms Local
player. We felt it was important to
extend our team rather than play at
Division 2 level
which would not give the girls the experience this
tournament would give them. Our team did not win a
set for the 4 games
we played, but we came close quite
a few times, and did not get a
thrashing which was
good. Everyone contributed well and had a terrific
time,
while looking forward to bringing back some more experience
to
the Geelong & Bellarine volleyball scene.
Horsham 2005 - Div 1 Women.
Our
last tournament for 2005 and we were represented
by Cheryl, Jessica,
Leena, Lyn, Rosemary & Sue - Lis
was injured from Masters &
Bendigo and was unable to
play - so was an 'actual' coach for a change!
A tough
ask for the girls only having 6 players, and of course
our
first game was against Burgercons. We lost 0-2 and
didn't have the best
of games. We won all our other
games, including a fiery game against
Renegades/Bendigo
late on Saturday in which we came out the winners 2-1
in a fantastic match. On Sunday we came up against
Warrnambool who had
recruited Laura Cooke who
had moved to Mortlake from Canada. Laura
inspired her
team and we had a drawn game in the end. One set kept
us
out of the final this year for the first time in all
our Division 1
efforts at Horsham. The girls did a great
job not having played
together before and just
the 6 players.
Lyn spikes against Ballarat backed up by
Jess, Sue & Cheryl
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