History of MUVC - 1999

1999 Australian University Games

The 1999 Australian University Games kicked off with the Opening Ceremony on September 26 in Perth, Western Australia.

Both the men's and women's intervarsity volleyball teams travelled across the Nullarbor for the first AUG to be held outside Victoria in three years.

Despite the grand final result, the women achieved an outstanding result, reaching Friday's gold match match against the University of Western Australia undefeated. In fact, they had dropped just one set in the previous four days play.

UWA had also made it through undefeated and the final was set be a clash of the titans. Unfortunately, Friday morning proved to be Western Australia's day as the Melbourne University women had to settle for silver.

The men came away in a respectible 9th position in what proved to be a very lop-sided draw. This position though did not reflect the effort and quality of the team's performance, only recording two losses for the week (one of them seeing them narrowly miss out on a quarter final berth which would surely have resulted in a top 4 finish).

Three of the women received Australian university selections... Congratulations to Jess Reynolds, Nicole Julich and Jenny Hiller on their Australian uni Green and Gold awards.

Victorian Volleyball League

This year's VVL began on Saturday, May 8, with matches held both at Springers Leisure Centre and Monash University. As was the case last year, all draws, results and ladders can be found at the Victorian Volleyball League web site.

In the Honours men, LaTrobe University move up from Division 1. While in the women's draw, despite all the controversy, Preston will not be entering a new Honours team.

It was a mixed start to the season for Melbourne University Renegades teams, but all sides did at least win one game in the first three rounds. Probably the biggest news in the first month was the victory of the Honours women over last year's champions, Monbulk, in five sets. For a team that was rebuilding and supposed to be fighting relegation, this was a momentous win.

With the season now at an end, only one Melbourne University Renegades team, Division 2 women, made the finals...congratulations girls... but they went down to Mornington (eventual champions) in the preliminary final. All teams have been highly competative though with all divisions being closely fought.

In a great day of finals at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, the Honours men's division was taken out by Preston Falcons in a closely fought match against Heidelberg. The Honours women's grand final was a little more one sided, with Fairhills coming out on top over Heidelberg (Fairhills had lost the grand final to Monbulk in the previous two years). The Heidelberg club could find something to cheer about in their Division 1 men though who played well to defeat a Geelong side that simply made too many errors. Unfortunately for Camberwell Cobras, all three of their teams lost grand finals. In the Division 1 women, Monash University won in five sets, Eastside Hawks in Division 2 men and Mornington in Division 2 women taking the honours.

1999 Southern University Volleyball Championships

Hosted by RMIT Bundoora, the SUSA championships were held up at the newly built Darebin Community Sports Centre during the Easter break.

Both the Melbourne University men's and women's volleyball teams comfortably qualified for the Australian University Games to be held across in Perth in September. The final day's play was a bit of let down though for our teams with the women losing a hard fought grand final against LaTrobe whom they'd beaten earlier in the competition. And the men saved their worst game of the week for the play-off for third against Monash, going down in five sets after being up 2-0.

1999 Wangaratta State Cup

The departure of Ric Chivers from the Wangaratta Volleyball Association shortly before the tournament proved a real blow to this year's Wangaratta State Cup held on March 27-28, 1999. Ric had organised the tournament in recent years and his leaving along with the rescheduling of the Melbourne tournament resulted in fewer teams travelling up in 1999. Indeed, both the men's and women's Honours divisions had to be cancelled due to a lack of interest from Melbourne based clubs.

Melbourne University and Renegades again sent three sides though for an enjoyable weekend in the reduced competition. The Renegades Division 1 women were clearly the best team in their division, eventually taking out the grand final against (third placed) Wangaratta. For the Melbourne University Division 1 men's side, Wangaratta has become a bit of a tradition in recent years, winning in 1997 and runners-up in 1995. It proved more difficult to get the old team together this year though, but there was still plenty of fun to be had and the team came away in third place. The Division 2 men's side was without their regular setter, David Walland, however Eric Orton performed well in the role and they too finished the weekend in third posiion.

Let's hope that the Wangaratta Association is able to regroup with support from VVI to build a bigger and better tournament in 2000.