Tendring U18 Women qualified for the last 8 of the National Volleyball Championships at the weekend. After a couple of years out of the limelight the team made a supreme effort to defeat some very well drilled teams. The first game was against Boswells, last years finalists and with the Tendring team made up predominantly of U15's, the girls received a good lesson in Volleyball excellence. The task was then made clear to girls, win the next 2 games and they would be ranked in the top eight teams in the country.
The next match against Norwich proved to be a bit of a grudge match as the teams had met in an earlier round. Excellent hitting by Beth and Georgia Ibbotson allowed Tendring to dominate the net. The attack proved to be the dominant feature of the game with Jessica Lane and Caisey Brown showing their experience in the setting position. Chloe Williamson made her debut for the school team and showed her real potential. Winning 2:0 gave the team a real boost and faced Richmond for a quarter final place. The added component was the team defence, Georgia Duffy and Patricia Co fought hard to pick everything up that was thrown at them and added to the power of our hitting Richmond buckled losing the first set. After a slow start Richmond won the 2nd taking the game to a decisive 3rd set. Charlotte Bontems also made her debut and played a standard of volleyball way above her experience level. The girls held out at 13:13 with 2 damaging serves by Jessica lane to win the match. The quarter final rounds are in kettering at the end of Feb.