Swansea Pirates Win the Welsh Open!
The Swansea based club have had a successful start to the year by winning the Welsh Open Volleyball Tournament.
The annual tournament, hosted by the University of Wales Aberystwyth, is one of the largest indoor tournaments held in the UK. Over 200 volleyball players from around the UK gathered to compete in this established and well-run tournament.
The tournament consists of three divisions, two men's and one ladies, each having a pool of 8 teams. Games are played on the first day, with the top four teams in each division qualifying for the semi-finals on the second day.16 members of the club, forming both men's and ladies teams, travelled to Aberystwyth to battle it out on court over the weekend.
The ladies did well in attaining fourth position in the Ladies Division, despite this being their first outing as a team.
The men's team cruised into the semi-finals by beating all their opponents in straight victories on the first day.
Despite the early success, injury forced one of the attacking players to retire from the tournament and an urgent restructure of the team was necessary before the matches on the second day. Fortunately, disaster was averted by the inclusion of a specialist setter from the ladies team.
The second day's play proved to be more arduous with evenly matched games against the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (UWIC), Ross-On-Hawaii, and Trendsetters.
The Pirates managed to beat UWIC in 2 clear sets, but matches against Ross-On-Hawaii and Trendsetters proved to be more of a fight, which were settled on points difference.
The club efforts were rewarded by the achievement of becoming the Division 2 Men's Champions for 2001.The weekend proved to be a great success socially, competitively and as an aid to the promotion of the sport of volleyball in Wales.
It is hoped that the club will attain the same success with many more of the tournaments it attends throughout the coming year.
Congratulations go to the winners of the Golden Awards for this tournament.
Please see our ' Hall of Fame' for the award winners.
SN27/03/01