First round of the 6v6 U15 Grand Prix. This is a tier one event with the top 23 U15 teams in the country competing. There will be 3 rounds ending in gold, silver and bronze play-offs. We are hosting the first round which will be played in a pool of 5 teams.

Venue: Woodchurch HS

Time; 10.30 to 2:00pm

Pool E: Wirral, Urmston A, Newcastle Staffs, Manchester Marvels, Leeds Gorse B

Team: Wirral U15 - Liv Stewart (capt), Sadie Capstick, Gabby Liu, Natsui Yamamoto, Victoria Adesina, Emma Benjamin

Scores: Wirral v Urmston A lost 0-2, 12-25, 11-25; Wirral v M/c Marvels won 2-0, 25-5; 25-20, Wirral v Newcastle Staffs lost 1-2, 20-25, 25-21, 13-15.
Leeds Gorse B withdrew and M/c Marvels arrived with only 5 players but that didn’t detract from a terrific tournament and a great performance from our U15 girls in their first outing as a 6-a-side team. Wirral came 3rd overall - details of the final placings are on the graphic on the home page.

After a tough start against Urmston A (who will expect to be in the top 4 national teams) our girls beat Manchester Marvels, then played out a heart-stopping 2nd/3rd place play-off match against a much more experienced Newcastle Staffs team. We lost the first set 20-25 having fought back brillantly from 2-11 down, won the second set despite a late ‘castle fight back, and lost the 3rd 13-15 after an epic battle. The noise and atmosphere in the hall and the tension was palpable as the advantage went one way then the other. We turned round 7-8 down, fought our way into a lead, traded points to get to 13-12, then lost at the death on a couple of unforced errors.

The girls were gutted afterwards, and it was hard to take the loss, but they’d done so well, fought so hard, played out an exciting game that had the crowd on its feet, that they deserve nothing but praise for their perfomance.

I was too involved with the action to take any photos and I missed the best shot of the match when I had to take avoiding action as Victoria dived off-court to hook a loose ball back in and over the net for a winner, but I’m really proud of our team’s perfomance. 

As usual we should thank Peter Hughes for his refereeing, and also five of our U17 girls - Imi, Katie, Helena, Lily and Emily - who came along to help out.