Thrilling Finals for Year 9&10 Boys and Girls Schools in Malta

Following two qualifying tournaments, four boys’ and four girls’ teams fought it out in the Finals of the school competition run by the Malta Volleyball Association (MVA) in conjunction with the ‘Play Volleyball – Grow with it’ project, which were held on Thursday, April 27, at the Cottonera Sports Complex.

These eight teams had emerged from the initial pool of 17 who competed this year in this age category. Five schools were represented in total, with three of them fielding a team in both groups.

MRC Ex-Lily of the Valley Mosta Secondary, STMC Zejtun Secondary, STMC St Lucia Secondary and St Martin’s College were the finalists in the boys’ competition. St Monica School Birkirkara, MRC Ex-Lily of the Valley Mosta Secondary, St Martin’s College and STMC St Lucia Secondary were the finalists in the girls’ division.

The teams played three matches each in a round robin format on a best out of three sets to 15 points, for a total of 12 matches on two courts. Most of the games were very close and had to go to the third set to decide the winner, while a good number of set winners had to go up to a two-point advantage.

The winners were St Martin’s College in the boys’ category with six points after two wins and one defeat, and MRC Ex-Lily of the Valley Mosta Secondary in the girls’ category with seven points after winning all their three games.

It was their first ever participation for both winning schools, so they managed a remarkable achievement. Congratulations to the champions and well done also to all the other finalists for putting up challenging performances!

At the end of the tournament, medals were awarded to the players of the winning teams by Mr Charles Gauci, the MVA School Project Manager. It was yet another morning full of enthusiasm and competitive spirit. The number of participating teams in this age group saw a considerable increase over the past years, thus matching that in the older age group of students. This augurs well for next scholastic year as the MVA hope that all these schools will renew their participation in the school volleyball tournaments, and maybe even add to these numbers with other schools.