Well what a turn-up for the records ! Titans Women won Bronze in the Women’s A Grade, wrenching the prize from Brisbanes grasp in the dying moments and the Reserve men won bronze in the Men’s Reserve Grade ! Well done to all the players and coaches – an excellent result in both divisions.
Titans Women ~ Season Round-up
The team was showing significant signs of maturing into a real team over the last half of the PVL season. The first sniff of possibilities came in Round 9 when the girls, having lost their first 6 matches outright and reduced to a bare 6 players (injury and work commitments) chased Norths to lose 2-3, 13-15 in the 5th. (This is remembering that Norths had smashed the Titans 3-0 in Round 4.) Then the first breakthrough came in Round 13 when Toowoomba smashed a Brisbane team leached of its top players by AVL commitments, 3-0; the belief was building. The following weekend, Round 14, Titans smashed Norths 3-0 albeit in less than quality play. Our team then was knocked back to earth in Round 15, when Easts humiliated the Titans with an emphatic 0-3 (8-25, 13-25, 18-25). (Probably nothing to do with a Titans squad party the night before..!!).
This left Titans in 4th position at the end of the season’s Round Robin by a set count-back pushing Norths out to 5th. The first of the Finals series preliminaries saw a repeat match against Easts, but our girls had a fire in their eye taking a set from Easts and pushing them in the last two. This was the first appearance of a united, more focused team operating close to the game plan. Pumped up by this performance, the girls went on to defeat Norths in the bronze semi’s 3-1, and the wave of belief was building a tide. They wanted bronze! … and, with their commitment to play at this level being much higher than any other team in the division, deserved it.
It should also be mentioned that the squad has suffered some casualties along this journey through injury, other commitments and just plain drop-out (…. its a tough road). Those that fell due to injury include Lisa Croft (Round 2, knee reconstruction required [touch football !!!]), Gillian Fulton (Round 12 , knee dislocation during match) and Angela Head (Round 13, broken wrist, training).
Women’s A Grade Bronze match ~
The Bronze medal match became the focus and the girls could taste it. Early observations of Brisbane’s performance in the preliminary match showed they were off the pace missing some big guns (injury) and getting smashed by Easts who had struggled against us. However, on the night it looked like they had a few of those guns back so the girls had to be prepared for a struggle.
The spirit was high and the team was unified like never before …. They started with a bang shocking Brisbane by taking the first set 25-21. Brisbane rallied and smashed back 17-25 with some long, hard rallies tiring the Titans players at times. The girls refocused and came back to get the third 25-18. Miho Miyazaki starred in defence in her role as libero recovering balls that were all but thought lost – fantastic. (We will miss her as she returns to Japan next year, especially her unparalleled humility.) The fourth set jumping out to a 4-1 points lead was soon crushed by a Brisbane reply with the Titans showing signs of fatigue and associated anxiety with some soft errors creeping into their play eventually going down 18-25.
So at 2-2 it was set for the 5th set showdown. The girls got into a huddle and talked about how much they wanted this, how much they felt deserving, and how close they were as a team. They came out charged with new vigour, a fire, and leapt to a 8-3 lead at changeover, mostly due to heavy directed serving backed up with solid reply play. They continued to a 13-7 lead and hope was slipping into “done”. But then Brisbane piled on the pressure and silly errors became magnified, and brisbane got on a run to bring the scores closer to 13-12 before a break. Stress and doubt were starting to show, but to the players credit, in their growing maturity in this team, they did not start sniping, they just hung on to what they had spoken about earlier – sisters-in-arms – and clawed the game to a 15-13 win on belief alone!!! The team erupted, the whole 5 court venue knew that the Toowoomba Titans Women had arrived !!!
Incredible….
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