Honours Men Runners-up in Bendigo

It was back to The Ranch (aka. Ironbark Riding Centre) for the 2000 Bendigo "Dragon City" tournament. There have been plenty of good memories at Bendigo for Renegades players over the years and it was fun again this year.

After a very disappointing Mornington tournament a fortnight ago, the Honours men came to Bendigo determined to finish the year on a high. We steadily improved throughout our four games on the Saturday (a 13 hour day of volleyball...urgh), going through the day undeafeated. That left it up to our last round match on Sunday morning against top team, Melbourne Juniors (the Preston youngsters and a few extras to help out), who we had to at least draw with to make the final. After the 60 minute time-limit match, we came away with a 1-1 draw and Renegades Honours men's sixth appearance in a Bendigo grand final. Unfortunately, it was also Renegades' sixth finals loss, having to settle for second place after a 0-3 defeat. Thanks to Bendigo Pottery who again provided the trophies for this tournament. And despite the finals loss, it was a big improvement for the team from a couple of weeks ago with everyone looking forward to next season.

The women sent a mixed team, having to enter Honours division after there weren't enough teams for a separate division 1. Despite lacking the attacking power of some of the other teams, to their credit they played well throughout the weekend and only narrowly missed out on the finals.

The Division 1 men had a team that had only been training together for a couple of weeks, with several players new to the club. After a couple of matches, they too were playing well together and it came down to their final round match on Sunday morning to see whether they made the cross-over finals. They had to win against the top team in their pool, and after a comfortable win in the first set, things looked promising. However, too many mistakes crept into their game and they went down 1-2, putting them out of finals contention.

Overall, it had again been an enjoyable and relatively successful Bendigo tournament for Renegades to finish off the indoor season for the year. Now, it's onto the beach for some summer fun.