Junior Girls Win U15 State Titles

Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School (PEGS) U/15 girls (future MU Renegades junior state league girls), coached by David Warwick and Jess Rumble, won the U/15 state titles on Sunday, 15th November. After finishing eighth at the Victorian Schools Cup, the team was runner-up to Eltham at last week's Kew tournament, and followed up this weekend with a victory at the state titles.

Through the rounds, the team lost to Yarra Valley 2-1 and beat it's other main rival, Eltham, 2-0. This placed them on top of the ladder on percentage after the rounds to meet Yarra in the play-off for gold. PEGS had never beaten Yarra, which they play regularly in their Saturday morning school sport, but were confident and keen for gold. The first set in the best of five final was a shellacking as PEGS played flawless volleyball to win the set 25-11. Then the reverse happened in the second with some of Yarra's tall girls (what do they feed them up there?) pounding the floor winning 25-14. The third was a repeat of the first with PEGS's consistency forcing errors on their opponents and taking the set 25-13. A neck and neck tussle through the fourth set finally fell to PEGS 25-23.

The tears and euphoria that followed was reward for a team that has worked really hard on the technical side of their skills since the Victorian Schools Cup. This was very evident in comparing the different teams' skills over the day. The PEGS girls are definitely not the tallest or best athletes in this age group, but have a skill level and determination to defeat their rivals. It's a very promising sign for the future of both PEGS and Renegades.