A number of Phantoms teams pushed their case for a finals birth last weekend with some dominant and hard fought displays at Maribyrnong College and the State Volleyball Centre.
PREMIER: The Men ground out a crucial 5 set victory over Eastside Hawks, avenging their first round loss and moving equal on points with Eastside in a tight battle for 4th place and a spot in the finals. Later in the day they also easily accounted for Mazenod in straight sets notching their fourth win in a row.
The Women continued their fairy tale first season in the top division with a relatively simple 3-0 victory over Heidelberg before suffering their first straight sets defeat to Melbourne uni Renegades in 3rd v 4th clash and potential finals preview.
RESERVES: After dropping a game they should have won in Horsham which put them back into the mid table log jam, a revitalised outfit came out firing and posted 2 straight sets wins, firstly over Hedielberg and then most importantly over Dandenong, who were firmly entrenched in the top four.
In game one our women were outclassed by the undefeated (and reigning champions) the Blue Bells going down 0-3 but were able to push them all the way in the 3rd set losing 27-29. That scoreline was replicated in the first set of their second match against Dandenong where they also lost in 3 very close sets.
DIVISION 2: Our Division 2 Women split their matches 1/1 losing 1:3 to Heidelberg 3 (the strongest of the 3 Heidelberg teams) and then recovered from a slow start to post a convincing 3:1 victory over Mazenod.
Our Men were uncharacteristically quiet and struggled in their first game against McKinnon 1:3 before bouncing back to their usual aggressive style of play beating Mazenod 3:1.
DIVISION 3: Once again our Women went 1/1 on a challenging day. Some strong performances under pressure at the end of very close sets against Eastside Hawks saw then win 3:1 before Losing in straight sets to Heidelberg.
The Men fought bravely through a tough 5 set match to defeat Croydon 36’s 3:2 and 15:13 in the fifth set before cruising to a comfortable win over Renegades 3:0.