SAISA Volleyball 2022

19th of October 2022 and the OSC boys volleyball team met at school to be picked up at 5 am we traveled as a team pumped up for the competition. After training for 12 weeks, 7 hours a week and 6 practice matches before the competition we were ready to go. This might have been the best volleyball team OSC had had in years. We arrived at the airport and swiftly made our way through security ready to board we said goodbye and good luck to the girl volleyball team who were off to Dhaka. We boarded the plane and to our surprise we were sitting in business class, what a start to the trip. We had VIP service the whole way and it was great. We arrived in Katmandu and travelled to the hotel, and wow was it nice we had lunch and settled in seeing a few of the teams on the way in we eyed up our competition for the week. In the evening we had a team swim and dinner after exchanging some money for the week to come. After a quick team talk we were off to bed.

We woke up, fired up. Competition day we were ready, playing the first game of the way stressful enough but playing the home team as well was nerve-racking. We warmed up as all the other teams arrived, fully focused and determined to win and make an impression on the other teams. Everyone was going to be watching. After a long warmup and the opening ceremony we were on. We lost the coin toss and had to receive but that wasn’t a problem. Unfortunately for the home team they lost to us in straight sets 25-19 and 25-15. This was great for our confidence, now for a 9 hour wait till our next game at 6:20 pm. After watching and sleeping all day it was finally our game, we got fired up again and were ready to take our second victory of the day which would be a great way to start our competition. We went in with full confidence and also brought this game home in 2 sets 25-12 and 25-13. We stretched and recovered, had dinner and went back to the hotel. After a good team talk discussing our day and improvements we set off to bed.

A later wake up was a nice treat however, I wasn’t feeling so well. Dehydrated and exhausted I had to take some rehydration salts, gatorade and digestion medication which made me feel better. Today was the second biggest day of our competition, we were playing Dhaka one of the best teams in the tournament. We got warmed up and ready at the school and prepared for a tough match up, which it was. We dropped the first set 16-25 which took our confidence a bit but a good team talk from our coach and we were back up and ready to fight back for the second set. After some monster hitting and great play we came back with a much deserved OSC win in the second set 25-10. This meant we had to play 3 sets, the first time in the competition. We showed good perseverance and commitment to win the third set 15-12. With our hardest game out of the way we were now top of the group which meant that if we won the next game we would be straight into the semi-finals. We played our last game of the day at 3 pm against ISOI (Islamabad) which we won without a problem again 25-19 and 25-20. This meant that not only were we 1 of 2 undefeated teams at this stage in the competition but we were also into the semi-finals on championship day. We had dinner and a motivational team talk and went off to bed.

Finals day, and our team woke up buzzing. We went down at a reasonable time for breakfast with all the team feeling in top physical condition. However, one of our team members our lebero was feeling unwell and needed to stay back at the hotel while we made our way to school. We got to Lincoln School and we were fully focused getting limbered up for the day in our team room and hydrating, we were ready. We watched the first couple of game which decided which team we would play in the semi finals. Chennai beat Bombay and Dhaka beat Muscat. This means we play Chennai in the semi-finals of SAISA. We played the first game ready to go and super excited this was our chance to prove to everyone that we could win this tournament. We lost the first set 26-24 which was a bit disappointing we made many mistakes but were not demoralised. We kept our heads high and went into the second set more motivated than ever. Playing some incredible volleyball with some big hitting and perfect passes, while locking down all their attacks we won the second set 25-10. This was a true representation of what our team was capable of. We had to fight hard to win the final set and under the immense pressure to get through we kept our heads level and finished the job 15-10. Finals it is and our team was ecstatic. After watching the second semi-final to see who we were facing, Dhaka managed to beat Muscat in close straight sets.

The finals: The time had come and we were in our warm up gear fully focused. This was our tournament to win, we had worked so hard all season. Morning sessions, weekend sessions and games all leading up to this moment. After a thorough warm up and some bump/set/hit practice we were ready. We got our game jerseys on and made our way to the gym. Just after Muscat won 3rd place we entered the court and started our on court warm up. We won the toss and decided to serve. All the team came to watch most cheering for the other team because they were the under dogs. All the teams knew we were a force to be reckoned with, they wanted to see the under dogs win. But we weren’t going to let that happen. In the must tense and entertaining volleyball match of the year we kept our cool and did what we knew what we had to do. We won the first set 25-19 which boosted our confidence leading to the win of the second set 25-22 after being down 8 points being faced with adversity we were able to dig deep and comeback in an emotional win. This ultimately lead to our 3rd and final set which we won 25-18 in an intense but fun game winning the boys SAISA volleyball tournament for the first time in OSC’s history. We had our award ceremony and received our trophy and medals, also giving out sportsmanship pins to people who we thought showed great sportsmanship throughout. We then had dinner and got back to the hotel to celebrate and the next day returned home victorious.