SUNRAYSIA Volleyball have broken through for their maiden division 1 title in the Volleyball Victoria Country Championships.
Despite a rough start to proceedings over the long weekend, the top-grade men’s side hit their straps at the right time, defeating host side Latrobe Valley three sets to nil, 25-14, 25-17, 25-17, in Monday’s grand final to win the gold medal.
The depth across the Sunraysia squad was vital to the performance as Dylan Lucchesi, Kade Zrna and Tom Hermans all earned All-Star 7 honours.
Sunraysia Volleyball president and division 1 men’s player Lachlan Giles said the squad were “stoked” with the result.
“These championships have been going since 1970 and that’s the first time we’ve managed to win a division 1 men’s or women’s gold medal so we’re over the moon,” Giles said.
“Especially to beat Latrobe Valley in Latrobe was a big result which probably made it sweeter.
“They’re a really good team that play together weekly in state league.”
The Sunraysia side secured four wins and a loss in their five pool matches to top the table, winning 70 per cent of their sets along the way.
Their only loss during the pool round came against their eventual grand final opponents, Latrobe Valley, recovering from two sets down to win in five.
“We had a rough start,” Giles said.
“Horsham took us to five sets which we weren’t really anticipating, then we won the first two sets in our opening match against Latrobe but they swept the final three sets.
“We managed to put Bendigo away pretty comfortably late on day one, which was probably a good boost for us.
“A couple of 3-0 results were definitely good as every set we avoided was beneficial.
“In the final I don’t think Latrobe scored over 17 points in a set, which was a great result.
“They’re a team you can’t take lightly.”
Meanwhile, a young Sunraysia division 2 women’s side went down in their bronze medal match against South Gippsland by three sets to nil but look set for a bright future.
They finished bottom of the table in a deep men’s division 2 competition, and finished sixth in division 3 men, their best result being a straight-sets victory over Horsham on day one.
“South Gippsland have been a pretty strong team in that division for a while now so we were pretty happy with how the girls went,” Giles said.
“It was a good mix of experience and younger players and we think they can hopefully be among the medals next year.
“The division 2 boys, I think, were probably better than their results showed.
“They were in an 11-team competition and ideal fixtures probably didn’t fall their way.”
