SW Championships 2023

The traditional end to the indoor season in the South West for the club is the South West Championships   which includes entries from some of the region's National League teams so there is a higher level of volleyball on display. As usual, the club's women's and men's SW teams took part in this year's competition which took place on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th May and was the second year that the competition has been hosted by Plymouth Marjon University.

The club's women's team finished mid-table in the SW Regional indoor winter league and were expecting to give as good as they got in the competition. Meanwhile, the men's team knew that having only won a single game during their SW season and finishing bottom, they were going to have to battle hard to win any matches and attempt to avoid the dreaded wooden spoon.

With the competition being a timed match format slow starts were quickly punished and it took the men a game to warm up however they managed to pull off a win in their second game against Weymouth Waves. However, that was to be their peak as they failed to win any more games on day one. However, after some "all you can eat" nourishment and refreshment in Plymouth city centre in the evening, the men's team came back with another win against Bemi VC in their opening match on Sunday (you can watch that match on YouTube here). However,that was to be it for the second day, losing their other remaining games.  Unfortunately, despite a total of 3 teams winning 2 games at the end of the two days and having to resort to points difference, the YVC men's team didn't avoid the wooden spoon.

The women's team faired slightly better, winning 3 games, losing 6 and finishing 7th out of 10 teams. Druing the tournament the YVC Women's team captain, Jolanta Gasiorowska Wodz was also presented with her MVP trophy from the previous winter's indoor season, a closely fought competition that finished in a six-way tie!

As it quite often the case with the tournament being played in May, while the teams were playing their matches indoors, it was a lovely sunny weekend outside and the club's squad members made full use of the outdoor TEQ table, new for this year's tournament, to play some table volleyball or "Teqvoly" as it seems to be called!