The Sunday News
EVELINE High School girls did Bulawayo proud when they came fourth in the National Association of Secondary Heads beach volleyball national tourney, which was recently held at Dendera High School in Mudzi.
The two-day tournament saw 24 girls’ teams and an equal number of boys’ teams from the country’s 10 provinces battling it out for top honours.
Bulawayo province was represented by Eveline in the girls’ category, and Masotsha and Induna High schools in the boys section. However, Mpopoma, who were supposed to represent the province in the girls section alongside Eveline’s Wildcats, could not make the trip.
Despite coming fourth at their inaugural appearance at the showcase, Eveline was also the first girls’ team from Bulawayo to participate at the tournament that was incepted in 2012. The tournament could, however, not take place last year.
Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two players on a sand court divided by a net. In order to keep the ball in play, a team can only hit the ball up to three times before returning it over the net. It has been an Olympic discipline since the 1990s.
“We really enjoyed playing the games although as players who are used to the conventional volleyball game, we had a lot of new things that we had to learn quickly. The sport is quick and tricky in many ways especially that we have new rules that we had to grasp,’’ said 17-year-old Christabel Sibanda.
“We had a short time to really prepare too — so coming out fourth out of 24 teams for relative amateurs like us is huge. We are looking forward to more of these tournaments in future. We did enjoy the challenge. Being used to play as a team of six and then you are plunged into the deep end only have one partner was quite testing. We had to depend on each other in a huge way.”
Christabel’s teammate Sindiso Sibanda, who is one of the tallest blockers in national high schools volleyball, was equally on cloud nine following their Mudzi experience.
“Beach volleyball games are quite emotional in many ways but mainly because it was the two of us on the court and when your partner messes up, you don’t really have other partners to fall back on. I actually prefer beach volleyball, it really is fun and the uniforms are even comfortable too I must say,” said Sindiso.
Some of the major differences between beach and indoor volleyball is that the playing surface on the former is sand instead of the hard court. Also, overhand touches and tips open-hand dinks are illegal in beach volleyball. Open-hand setting standards are different in the beach game, double hitting is called tighter but lifts are slightly more lenient. There are no rotation errors on the beach as players may switch sides at will.
It is also legal to cross under the net in beach volleyball as long as it does not interfere with the opponents’ play.
Interestingly, coaching during matches is also not allowed, something which one of the coaches, Leeward Nsingo jokingly called “off-setting”.
“So when you are a coach and you see your players missing one or two things, it really irks not to be able to say something to them. What we actually ended up doing was stealing opportunities when we are supposed to hand them water bottles to whisper instructions.
Team manager, Jobert Ngwenya said more had to be done for the survival of an interesting sport such as beach volleyball in the city. On their way to their fourth place finish, Eveline beat Mnene 2-0 before dismissing Dewure by a similar margin.
They lost to Masarakufa 0-2 before recovering accounting for Roosevelt from Harare 2-0, Mnene 1 (2-1), and, Vengera 2-0.
Eveline were booted 1-2 at the semi-final stage by Marondera High School.
Meanwhile, Eveline seems to be reviving netball with the school’s Under-15 team reaching the finals of the Under-15 Netball Talent Development tourney, which was hosted by Sikhulile High School a fortnight ago.
Team coach, Eugene Mkhothamo said the school, which is renowned for its prowess in volleyball and basketball was on the netball resurgence.
A total of 10 schools participated in the tourney.
