Warrnambool 2007 - Division 1 Womens Champions

Australian Volleyball Masters - Geelong,
Easter 2007 - 35+ Women.

A solid team this year with Andrea, Cheryl, Lisa, Liz,
Nadia, Rosemary, Sabine, Sue & Vera. Cheryl had turned
her ankle at State League training not long before, so
was going to be used across backcourt. The Womens
teams from all age groups were going to play each other.
We played Golden Girls 40+, losing that game, then
backing up to play Cobras 30+ - a good game which
we lost also - for the first time as Phantoms, we were
on the bottom of the ladder :( The next morning had us
playing Cruisers 45+, we won 2-1, and it was not
pretty. The game against Kiwi Amazons 40+ was better,
but we lost that one too :( and our last round game
was against Reds, losing that as well. We had started
to play better gradually and later on Sunday we were
scheduled to play Reds again to see who would play
Cobras in the final. Our team played well with us
winning, we couldn't wait for another crack at Cobras
the next day. A terrific game with both teams showing
great control and skills, and going to 5 sets, with Cobras
winning 15-12. As we were the only team in 35+ we
still won the Gold medal and it was great to see the
team persisting though we were not playing well at times.
Both Andrea & Rosemary had a some really good games
over the 4 days.

Phantoms MVP – Winner: Vera Rava (by 1 vote)
R/Up: Sue Cooper - 3rd: Rosemary Bissett.

Vera spikes at Reds with Andrea & Sue looking on



Australasian Masters Games – Adelaide – 35+ Women.

A good solid team this year – Andrea, Cheryl, Lisa,
Lyn, Nadia, Rossy & Sue. Before we began playing our
games, Lyn, Rossy & Lisa had taken our Cats scarves with
us seeing as our wonderful AFL team had just beaten Port
Adelaide in the Grand Final the week before. We
inadvertently ended up at the Port Adelaide Best
& Fairest with our scarves, the lady behind the counter
was not impressed!

Our first game on Sunday was against Flyers who we
played 2 years ago here in Adelaide. A strange game
where we played steadily, but they seemed to get the
breaks and we lost 3-0. Monday saw us play Ajax who
had not played together before and we had a good
game winning 3-0 and backing up to play Dalby
Legends from QLD and winning that game 3-0 also.
Tuesday had us in the 2nd V 3rd playoff against Ajax
again. They had improved since our last game and we
had to wear them down winning 3-1 to get into the
Gold Medal playoff against Flyers. We played well in the
first set winning 25-20 quite comfortably, then in the
2nd set one of their players came under the net and
Andrea landed on her foot and had to be taken off.
Rossy came on in her place and we kept our momentum
up and ended up winning 27-25. Andrea made a good
recovery and was able to play again in the game. The 3rd
set was a little harder – we had fallen behind and spent
most of the set playing catch up, to no avail, we lost
22-25. Then in the 4th we rallied well together and we
ended up winning the Gold Medal winning the 4th set
25-19! This team played very well together throughout
the tournament with all players contributing well in
all facets of the game – a very satisfying win!

Phantoms MVP – Winner: Cheryl Moore - R/Up: Sue Cooper
3rd: Lyn Edlich



Whoops! :) Its a pity we couldn't have stayed ...



AMG Opening Ceremony
Our Adelaide friends from Terminators Mixed Team
Cheryl, Phillipa, John & Robyn, Lyn, Nadia, Lisa & Rossy

Australasian Masters Games 2007 - 35+ Women's Champions
Lyn, Lisa, Andrea, Sue, Nadia, Cheryl & Rossy.

Bendigo Dragon City 2007 - Div 1 Women.

Off we ventured once again to Bendigo - Cheryl, Lisa,
Nadia, Lyn, Jess, Rosemary, Shireen and we welcomed
Emma Rae - originally from Bendigo, now studying in
Geelong at Deakin Uni. We had 4 games today and came
up against Renegades (we always seem to play them first)
who had a mixture of Honours and Div 1 players – we won
25-17, 22-25, 18-11 and this was one of our best starting
games I had seen in all our tournaments. Our 2nd game
was against the rebel group from Eastern Institute with
players from junior state teams. Emma had to leave the
court early with a dicky knee (we gave her a Chinese name
of “Fatnee” for the rest of the tournament). It was a
rigorous game with us winning 25-17, 25-23 – this
set was made interesting considering we came back from
being 10-21 down! Hey – we like a challenge! 3rd game
was against Latrobe Valley who are a very good defensive
side and it showed with us just victorious in the 1st set
25-23. The 2nd set was less arduous with our score
line 25-12 and victorious in the 3rd 18-15 to give us a
solid 3-0 win. Our last game of the day was against S.L.R.
1 from Sebastopol – we had decided to leave Emma off
the court until Sunday to give her knee a good rest – and
the team went on with it winning 25-12, 25-11 & 25-15
for a good solid finish to the day – undefeated! That
night, there was much squealing and yelling as some of
our players did their recovery session in the Welcome
Stranger Hotel pool – mostly in their underwear! (We didn’t
bring bathers 'cause we thought the pool would be dry
with the drought)

Sunday saw us up against familiar foes – Golden Square,
Emma played some backcourt and declared “I am ready
for anything” and again another terrific game from all
the team saw us have a good win 25-17, 25-18 and just
missing out on the 3rd set 13-5. The win guaranteed
our place in the final (our 3rd straight one for the year)
yay! Our final game of the round was against Bendigo
Academy, it was their only game for the day and they
came out firing with a couple of their much taller players
dominating the game and giving us shorties the run around!
It was a tough game and we lost 0-3 (18-25, 17-25 &
14-25). The Final found us meeting Renegades – we went
into the game confident that we had played well during
the tournament and found some good line-ups to match
up against their players. Emma & Cheryl started on the
bench and we had the same line-up as the first game
against Renegades which was successful. It wasn't to
be, Renegades played very well and had a terrific attacking
game, which saw us lose the first set 17-25. The 2nd
set had Lisa & Shireen on the bench which as our 2nd
line-up that had done well against Renegades, alas we
could not make any inroads and losing 17-25 again. We
had no choice but to mix it up again having Lyn & Rosemary
on the bench with Lyn & Jess swapping front and backcourt
as well – and wouldn’t you know – we won 7-25 whoo hoo!
We continued with the same line-up having Lyn swapping
with Jess again, and giving Emma a rest to swap with
Shireen across the front – a change was made and Emma
came on for Lisa across the front instead. We fought hard
but could not win the 4th set going down 20-25 (Set score
was 1-3). Our whole team played well including both Shireen
& Nadia who are hitters and over the past couple of seasons
set for their local teams on Mondays, and both did
very well with the challenges of setting those difficult
passes. A special mention of Cheryl’s backcourt hit in one
of the games followed up by another backcourt hit off the
ball that cam back straight away – she didn’t win the point,
but it sure as hell caught everyone on the court off guard!
Much fun was had by all in a terrific tournament!

Bendigo Dragon City 2007 - Division 1 Women's Runners Up
Lisa, Cheryl, Lyn, Shireen, Nadia, Rosemary, Emma & Jess.

Horsham Tournament 2007 - Div 1 Women.

Well – it was finally here! Our 10th Horsham Tournament
since our humble beginnings in 1998 in Division 2,and
look at us now! We took away a strong team this year
Cheryl, Emma, Jess, Lisa, Lyn E, Nadia, Rosemary, Suzi
and in her first tournament with Phantoms – Ivy Blackman,
Ivy is originally from Shanghai China and has been living in
Sydney until earlier this year when she moved down
to Geelong.

There was much excitement – we had our 10 year Polo
shirts to wear in readiness for a wonderful start to our
10th year as Phantoms. And of course, Dave Berry didn’t
disappoint – we played Burgercons first up on Saturday
and in one of the best displays I’ve seen – we won 25-12
& 25-17 – the highlight being Suzi’s pickup off her
shoulder and head which in the end saw us winning the
point! We then matched up against Golden Square – and
as per usual Kellie Houlihan’s girls played a tough game to
stretch the game to 3 gruelling sets – we won by 2 points
in the 3rd (17-25, 25-14 & 25-23). Monash White
were next, ably led by Helen Saunders (we missed you
Helen) in which we played some good volleyball and winning
2-0 (25-18 & 25-9). Our last game of the day was against
Renegades (grrrrrr) – you will recall we lost the final 2
weeks ago to this strong outfit, and lo and behold, they had
brought along an even taller more aggressive team to
Horsham. We knew this would be a tough game and being the
last of the day would test us mentally (that’s always a test)
and physically – Ivy played a terrific game and the rest of
the team played very well to give us an emphatic 2-0 win
(25-17 & 25-20)! What a day 4 from 4!

Sunday morning saw us duty Renegades and Burgercons, if
Burgercons lost 1 set then we would be into the final no
matter what – they ended up losing 1-2. Our game against
Monash Blue was the decider in who we would meet in the
final, if we beat them then it would come back to
sets between the two previous teams and Monash.
This would prove to be a tough game, we lost the first set,
but won the 2nd 25-7 and then lost the 3rd 20-25.
Monash played over and off our blocks very well through
4 and hit well into the position between 6 and
1 – we had no answer.

So it was to be that we would meet in the final which
ended up being at 5pm. We had a discussion about
changing tactics to combat the problems we had
identified earlier and with that began our final assault on
winning Horsham for the first time in 10 attempts.
Monash had suggested having the game best of 3, we
were happy to go the whole way if we had to, so we
stuck with best of 5. We started Lyn, Lisa &
Rosemary on the bench – the starting team had
played well earlier in the day against Monash and it was
a close set, when it got to 23 all we subbed Rosemary for
Jess and Lisa for Suzi to get some extra height on the
net – and Monash crumbled under the pressure losing the
next 2 points to give us the set. The 2nd set saw Jess, Emma
& Suzi start on the bench and we went along well at the
start of the set until Cheryl tore a calf muscle and
had to leave the court for treatment and was replaced
by Emma. We play with a variety of line-ups so it
only took us a couple of points to gain the momentum back
again and saw us gain the ascendency to win the set
comfortably 25-18. The 3rd set saw Jess, Suzi & Cheryl
(she did not return to the court) ready to come onto the
court and we were able to have Suzi come across
the back to give Nadia a well-earned break, and Jess
to come across the back for Emma as well. The set
was neck and neck until we got to 17 all, then Lisa came
back to serve and with Nadia counting down how many
points we needed for a momentous win, she got the
team to 22-18 up which included an ace – Monash were
rattled. A couple of points and Ivy finishing well in the
middle saw us win 25-19 and our first Horsham Tournament
Division 1 Women's! Well done on a terrific
weekend and result!!



It only took us 10 years!

Finally - We are No. 1 at Horsham!
Lisa, Emma, Cheryl, Ivy, Rosemary, Suzi, Jess, Nadia & Lyn

Celebrating on our way home at 'The Giant Koala'

And at 'Sisters Rocks'

GAVA Spring Season - Div 1 Women.

This is our 6th season as Phantoms in GAVA and we had
gone through the season with just the 7 players,
Catherine, Cheryl, Ivy, Lisa, Michelle, Shireen and we
welcomed Meagan Morris who joined us at the start of
2007. Our Autumn season was good earlier in the year
with the team, including Liz Nadolski, finishing Runners-Up
to geelong in a 5 set game. This season we managed to
stay injury-free and put in good games only losing to
Geelong late in the round games. During the last 3 games
we welcomed back Julie Dew for a short stint in her
recovery from her elbow injury with Bellarine earlier in
the year. The team had been combining well and we had
worked hard to finish on top of the ladder for the first
time. It was with much sadness that we found out Meagan
would not be here for the Grand Final and as mentioned
previously, Cheryl had sustained a calf injury during
Horsham a week or so ago - we were down to 5 players,
plus Cheryl serving then stepping off the court. We
discussed the best playing options for our team to deal
with this as we would have to play the gap for the game.
Using just one blocker on the net and the other front
court player/s covering the tips, we played very well in
the first 2 sets to win comfortably - ntably coming
back from 13-18 down in the first also. The team began
to tire in the 3rd set with the extra running around
being one player down and we went down in that set.
The team rallied very well in the 4th winning
the final 25-14 in the 4th set! Well done team!

Check it out!

GAVA Spring Season Div 1 Womens Champions 2007!
Ivy, Lisa, Catherine, Shireen, Michelle & Cheryl

Ivy wins GAVA MVP!

Bellarine Spring Season - Div 1 Mixed.

It has been a while since our Friday night Mixed team
got a mention - just the 7 of us this season - Jon
Collyer, Aaron Krahe, Lisa Krahe, Cheryl Moore,
Lyn Eldich, Scott Tyack and we welcomed Simon Peake
who began playing with us mid 2006, Simon is the son
of Peter Peake who has been playing volleyball in
Geelong & Bellarine for many years. Simon came up
through Bellarine's junior ranks and was ready to progress
to Div 1 - too tall for Div 2 at 6'3"! He has the height
on the net and has worked hard at his backcourt and
has found his niche in Position 6. The team finished
the season on top of the ladder and won the Semi
final 3-1 with 5 players because Cheryl was injured
after Horsham and Aaron was up in Canberra playing Good
Neighbour with Uni Blues (they won Div 1). They came
up against GH Netlom which had familiar names of
Dew (both junior & senior) & Kuklych. It was a tight
first set with Phantoms victorious and the next 2 sets
were easier with Phantoms running out winners 3-0,
with a special mention of Lyn Edlich who played a
superb game both front and backcourt. At this stage
Phantoms has won 15 seasons at Bellarine and has not lost
a Grand Final since 2000. What an effort!