Winchester Eagles Volleyball Club

Yesterday, two of our Under 14 players went all the way to the National Volleyball Centre in Kettering to take part in the Volleyball Futures event – an all-day volleyball camp led by national team volleyball coaches.

Our Eaglets had three very inspiring practical sessions. The first one, run by England Cadets’ coach Carol Gordon, was about movement and balance, with some very challenging activities (some even with your eyes closed!) to perfect the ready position and transition movements.

This was followed by a presentation by Bertrand Olie on the Talent Pathway to join the junior national squads. Bertrand also led a workshop on the importance of nutrition and sleep and information on this will soon be shared with all club members.

The second practical session was also led by Carol and included some very interesting drills aimed at perfecting your pass (we might sneak in some of these in our future sessions so watch this space).

Then our juniors had a chance to interview the Under 17 women squad before joining the last practical session of the day: “Learn to spike powerfully” led by Senior England Men’s Assistant Coach Jeff Williams. Our young athletes were blown away when Jeff bounced the ball to the ceiling with just a flick of his wrist and they had a lot to take away as they were shown the building blocks of a powerful spike.

It was a challenging but fun-filled volleyball day, which gave our youngsters a unique opportunity to get advice from some of the best coaches in the nation and meet young talented players from all over the country.

At the end of the day they were happy but exhausted and they even managed to take home a Coaches’ Award.

Our club has now sent a total of five young players to Volleyball Futures and we are hoping to increase this number next season.

What a great achievement for our growing youth section!

Today, the Winchester Eagles Ladies Team competed at SEVA in the regional finals against the top teams from five counties.
It was a long day of tough games in a crowded, hot and noisy hall with no chance to warm up but this year the Ladies came better prepared and took advantage of every second and every corner to try and be game ready at the sound of the hooter.
Although they didn’t make it to the semifinals, they performed extremely well and were able to put up a good fight in all games against really strong sides.
They had moments of brilliance, some monster blocks, powerful hits, strong serves with many aces and they worked their socks off in defence, fighting hard to keep the ball alive. The passing unit was challenged at times, with floating serves putting our Ladies under pressure but they had very good strategies to quickly get back into the red zone.
They managed to beat Epsom , nearly took a set from Oxford (the pool winners) and kept both Dartford and Worthing on their toes.
It was great to see how much the team has grown in just one season. They are now able to compete at the highest levels, they are really working well as a team and supporting each other and definitely belong with the top teams in the region. We are very very proud of all of them and have high hopes for next season. Well played everyone!

For the second year running, the Eagles Ladies did very well in the HVA Grand Prix and managed to go through to the South East Volleyball Association finals, which will take place on 14th May.
They will be representing Hampshire together with Guernsey Ladies. A total of ten teams from five counties will be competing for the title of regional champions.
In the last HVA Grand Prix of the season, the Ladies had two very tough games. The first one was against SVC, which fielded lots of NVL players. The Eagles started very confidently, quickly securing the first set. In the second set, they were in the lead most of the time and it was just because of some trouble in the passing unit combined with a couple of unlucky scrappy balls that SVC managed to steal the set.
The decider was going to be the tie-break and the Ladies had started very well. When it looked like it was all over for SVC, with the Eagles a few points ahead and their strongest server to serve for the match point, it all started to go downhill for the ladies. SVC managed to side out and climbed back up point by point thanks to a very powerful server. The ladies crumbled under the pressure and started to make some unforced errors. It was a shame that SVC managed to win the game, as the Eagles were clearly the stronger side and had been dominating the whole game.
The last match was against Hits and Giggles, which was top of the league and undefeated. The Eagles gave it their all and put up a very good fight. Having introduced a libero meant the Ladies’ passing unit had become much stronger but unfortunately that wasn’t enough to beat the opposition. Despite the Eagles best efforts, Hits and Giggles won both sets.
Luckily for the ladies, the results of the other games worked in their favour and they managed to go through anyways.
A huge thank you to our coach David for his invaluable support throughout the day.

Another fantastic day of volleyball for the Winchester Eagles today at the HVA Mixed Grand Prix.
The Eagles took part with two teams: Golden Eagles and Black Eagles.
Some amazing volleyball actions from both teams in a series of seven timed competitive games against teams from all over Hampshire.
The Golden Eagles only lost one game by a handful of points against the tournaments winners – BVC.
The Black Eagles performed very well too and put up a good fight in the Eagles derby that was going to be the decider for the silver medal.
In the end, both teams finished on the podium, taking home second and third place. Well played everyone!

Last night, the Winchester Eagles Ladies Team took home the SADVA trophy after yet another two convincing victories, winning the SADVA League for the second year in a row without losing a single game.

Their first match was against Roke Ladies, who are second in the league. Thanks to their aggressive serves, the Eagles were soon in the lead with a wide point gap. The Roke team could do nothing against the Ladies’ powerful attacks and strong serves and the Eagles defence was very rarely challenged. The Ladies stayed in the “red zone”from start to finish and secured the game with a quick 2-0.

The second game against New Forest was very short, with the Eagles dominating from start to finish. The Eagles tried to take the power off their serves to get some rallies going but the New Forest team was really struggling to get the ball over and it was soon 2-0 to the Eagles.

What an amazing season for the Ladies with an uninterrupted string of victories in the local league! We are now looking forward to the last fixture of the county HVA Grand Prix to see if we can repeat last season’s great performance and get through to the regionals at SEVA.

Unfortunately, our coach David couldn’t be there but he would have been proud to see how our hard work at training paid off.

Huge thanks to our loyal super fan Carlos, who was there as always cheering for the team, together with Paul and our little mascot and even fans from the US! Our fan club is obviously growing…

After the games, the Ladies headed to the pub to celebrate what has undoubtedly been another very successful season. Well done everyone!