Honours Men Take a Set Off Australia's Number 1

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David Martin's picture
Submitted by David Martin on May 3, 2001 - 1:00am

The Melbourne University Renegades Honours Men's team took a set off Australia's number 1 club team on Wednesday night. Both the Honours men's and women's teams played their VVL 2001 round 1 matches at the Melbourne University Sports Centre at 8pm on Wednesday, May 2.

The first two rounds from the past two Saturdays had been postponed due to players also playing in the Australian Volleyball League on those weekends. The Melbourne Falcons men had ended up winning the AVL grand final on Saturday against Queensland North in five sets (15-11 in the fifth).

The MU Renegades men have never defeated the (Preston) Falcons and it had been three seasons ago since they'd even taken a set off Australia's number 1 team. However, with a new coach and large squad of players, the MU Renegades men have shown slow but steady improvement over the preseason.

In front of a small but vocal crowd, Renegades started well with a shut-out block to Taleni on the first point of the match. The first set though ended up going to Falcons. The second was a much closer affair. Renegades were down 18-22 but fought their way back to 25-25 and the set could have gone either way. Two strong jump serves from Falcons though at the crunch gave them the set 29-27. Having put up such a great fight, it would have been easy for the MU Renegades side to lay down in the third, however, to their credit they came back strongly from the narrow set loss to win the third 26-24... the first set they'd won against Falcons in three seasons. Falcons eventually won the match 3:1 but the MU Renegades men could take away plenty of positives having pushed the Falcons team (which included Australian player Nick Mortimer) all the way.

The MU Renegades Honours women were up against Fairhills who have been around the top of women's volleyball in Victoria for several years and a team that looks like it is capable for taking out the 2001 season. Unfortuantely, the Renegades women weren't able to go with the Fairhills side, losing in straight sets.