The Perth Open saw a very young Kilmarnock Team play against three much older, experienced teams including the Scotland National Team, on the Saturday.

Our first game was rusty, as most players had not touched a ball in a long time as post-season training had begun. A blow came 4 points in as Mark Lawson twisted his ankle and had to be wheel-chaired off the court. Our first set performance was matched by Dundee as they just edged the first set. Although, as each player got used to touching the ball, a very strong second set performance saw us take the set comfortably, 25-10. A very solid pass from our libero Martin McMullen and Stuart Edgar achieved this. In the last set, Dundee’s experience was prominent and they just took the game be a matter of points.

A strong Jets team were our next opponents on the Saturday. We took the first set 25-19 from a steady pass and strong middle play from both Stewart Caldwell and Calum Bryson. Consistent setting to both 4 and 2 from Grant Young allowed Euan Duncan, John Hollis and Ally Green to attack the Jets team but again, due to experience the Jets team were able to take the second set and carry the momentum through the short final set.

Our final game of the day saw Kilmarnock take on the Scotland Senior Men’s team. We could see from the warm up that this was going to be a tough game, but as we started to play everyone rose to the challenge. As we were the underdogs in this game, nerves were nowhere to be found as people were going for there shots and serves, which took us to a position of 22-22 in the first set. Then an extremely questionable call was given against Stuart Edgar block, which completely deflated our team and the Scotland team took advantage of this and won the set, 25-22. The game was closely fought to the end but the outcome was inevitable after the first set, we lost 25-18.

And early on the Sunday, we had our semi-final of the Plate against Team USA. This was a solid performance as many players were tired from the rough nights sleep they had. The first set was won with strong but smart hitting tactics from experienced player Stuart Edgar and the weekend’s Captain John Hollis. Stewart Caldwell was linking up with Grant Young well to cause havoc for the USA middle blocker.  A final big block from Caldwell won us the set and gave us a 2-0 victory and a chance for the Plate.

Our final game saw us against Dundee, who beat us 2-1 in the group stage on Saturday. Kilmarnock started the game well; serving from Euan Duncan enabled us to set up our strong block defence. As the game came to a nail biting final set, certain players stepped up to the mark. Ally Green hit extremely well through the whole game, and two massive blocks from middle Calum Bryson helped put Kilmarnock in a strong position, but we were just beat out very narrowly 15-12.

This ended a good weekend of volleyball, as the young team played well throughout giving the volleyball world a glimpse of the future of Kilmarnock Volleyball Club.

Calum Bryson