Buoyed by winning the recent South Island senior girls volleyball title, Nayland College had high hopes at the national secondary school champs in Palmerston North last week.
The team was seeded 12th but was always going to be better than that ranking, winning five of its first six matches to cruise into the quarter-finals.
There they came up against St Andrew’s College, the Christchurch school that Nayland had beaten for the past four years.
But they suffered a surprise 3-0 loss to the side, which had two New Zealand representatives. It was close 25-23, 25-21, 25-17.
Nayland coach Brendan Crichton puts the rare defeat down to nerves.
Nayland bounced back to beat Western Heights 2-0 in the play-off for fifth place.
“That’s still our best girls result at the nationals since 2006,” says Brendan.
The strength of South Island girls’ volleyball was underlined by Nayland, St Andrew’s, Christchurch Girls’ High School and St Margaret’s College, all reaching the final eight in the top grade.
Nayland had beaten St Margaret’s in the South Island final, but this time the Christchurch school went all the way, defeating Auckland’s Rangitoto College 3-0 in the final.
