Supreme innings for volleyball teams

LIMPOPO – AT last, a volleyball line-up of supreme exuberance…

Limpopo Volleyball Association (LVA) finally staged their opening league matches of the 2015 season amid fanfare at the voluminous Ngoako Ramathlodi Indoor Sports Centre in Seshego on Saturday.

Despite the delay earlier to start the league due to late registration of clubs, the provincial governing structure eventually staged an event that set an impressive precedence that promises to be an exciting season ahead.

The association’s tournaments director Masipa ‘Mass’ Mailula confirmed that 14 teams in the elite league, 11 in the second division and 16 in the women’s category will henceforth battle for provincial honours. The domestic league is a precursor to the National Club Championships (NCC), which is one of the remarkable events on Volleyball South Africa’s calendar.

The NCC is played by provincial teams with finished as champions and runners-up. By proper planning, the LVA league traditionally blasts off at the beginning of the year, but due to registration fiasco, the association had to postpone the commencement.

The picture-perfect event was the scene of extraordinary setting, target passing, robust blocking and fierce over-the-net smashing game. Defending champions Kamplits of Bela-Bela arrived in style with some bragging rights befitting their status as reigning kings and queens having won the provincial league in all categories last season.

The team under the tutelage of Kgotso Aphiri made their intention of reclaiming their championship honours and clobbered all their opponents with remarkable flourish. Aphiri said nothing much has changed in his game plan, except that they have improved their technique systematically. The men and women from the Waterberg district who bludgeoned other big guns to catapult themselves to the top were impressively in tip-top form.

Their ferocious spiking game sent a clear message to their contenders that they mean business. And, indeed, juggernauts like the University of Limpopo, Eagles, Evergreen, Masokolara, Diesel ‘n Dust, Bulldogs and Seshego Spikers got the message crystal clear that they have a mammoth task when they face off the star-studded Kamplits. Meanwhile, bitter rivals have avoided each other as the fixture programme has pitted them against each other towards the end of the season.

Mailula explained the rationale behind the deliberate scheduling the tough matches towards the end as ‘saving the best for last’.

The next LVA league matches will staged at the same venue on June 13.