Sport
24 February, 2025
Volleyball Horsham's summer season starts for A Grade and women's teams
A Grade and women's competitions commenced on Monday, February 25.
Volleyball
Horsham
The pre-season is out of the way and the real thing started on Monday, February 24 for Volleyball Horsham's A grade and women's competitions.
The new look women's A competition, with the promotion of the two Wimmera Lutheran College girls' teams from women's B and the consolidation of talent across the other teams, will see the strengthening of the competition.
The opening game saw the first test when the Thorns played Lakers.
Lakers have been strengthened with the inclusion of Lydia Schneider, Kymberley Murray and Hannah Birch into a team that finished third last season.
Thorns will look to the big hitting Ilze Van Zyl to win the bulk of their points, while Bonnie Grieger will step up into the second pass hitting role.
The following game saw reigning premiers Phantoms do battle with the second WLC team who have taken over the Heidelberg name.
Phantoms missed key setter Kara Johnson but have strengthened their line up with the inclusion of Larree Smith.
The Quick sisters Casey and Sophie were called upon to step up in Johnson's absence.
Heidelberg will look to Serena Johns and Amelia Van Buuren to work together as pass-hitter and setter to keep in touch with the experienced Phantoms team.
The women's B competition has come together nicely with six very even teams.
The opening game saw the Magnificent Medicos and Von Steiger Sisters going head-to-head.
Rej Smith and Shabnam Ariani are the Medicos prime movers, while the Von Steiger Sisters have looked to Meg Armstrong and Lyn Aneban to score the bulk of their points.
The Bombers have Matilda Horvat and Chloe Mackley as their go to players and they took on the Stars who have the improving Ray Barr and Emily Johns as their key players.
The third game saw the newly promoted Power Divas go head-to-head with the Von Steiger Shadows.
The Divas have Eden Pumpa and Drew Armstrong as their key players while the Shadows looked to Jean Yu and Josie Ponseca as their keys.
The A grade competition will see the return of some of Volleyball Horsham's best players.
Last season's premiers, Phantoms, opened the night when they took on the new-look Heidelberg team.
Key Phantom,Tyler Puls will carry a massive load along with Noah Werry while Heidelberg welcomed back Nathan Berry, Shaun Bray and Jake Myerscough.
This game was to be decided by the two setters - Werry for Phantoms and Berry for Heidelberg.
The final game saw Rangers take on Tsunami.
Rangers welcomed back Jack Hannan and Tim Carter - both have recovered from injury that limited their appearances in the back half of last year.
Tsunami welcomed into their team key middle Clay Heard to complement the work of Tyler Snowden.
Tsunami will look to the youngsters in Joel Brilliant, who will be making his A grade debut, Kai Dodson and Jiedan Young to be consistent contributors.