We have some young beach volleyball champions living among us on the South Coast.
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The Australian Youth Beach Volleyball Championships (AYBVC) recently took place at Coolangatta, QLD and our local young guns did not disappoint on the highest stage, with fantastic performances across the board.
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The AYBVC is the premier youth beach volleyball event on the Volleyball Australia calendar, running between March 28 and 31 with teams from all around the country battling it out on the sand.
Alexandria Smith from Callala Beach and Parri Barrele from Callala Bay were pegged as number one seeds heading into the event.
Coming off of a fifth place finish in 2021, the girls headed to Queensland determined to secure a medal finish.
The event looked dicey with torrential rain and 60 km/hr winds making the conditions less than desirable.
However, the girls were prepared and had trained in all manner of different conditions throughout the season leading up to the event.
The girls also tried to compete in as many opens events as possible to hone their skills prior to Coolangatta against tough opponents.
The girls gained important ranking points through these events, with Alex finishing in the top 100 for the country at #73 and Parri at #130, which are both amazing results for the young athletes.
The dynamic duo of Smith and Barrele did not disappoint, winning all of their pool games against SA, VIC and QLD in two sets.
After the pool round the duo sat first in placed seeding heading into the top eight playoffs.
They fought two tough matches against QLD and SA, climbing their way to a final matchup against VIC.
The duo put up a strong defensive effort, but went down in two sets to a strong Victorian team of Samantha Pila and Milla Smith.
The young stars of the South Coast should be beyond proud of a fantastic campaign, that saw them travel almost 25,000 km to tournaments across the country. The future is unbelievably bright for this duo on both the sand and the hardwood.
Walking away with a silver medal, the girls achieved exactly what they aimed to do, securing a medal finish.
Mireille Smith, Alexandria's sister, also had a fantastic performance in Queensland.
Mireille teamed up with Yasmim Ramos from Wollongong to form a strong partnership to take seventh place in Australia for the U16 event, in a record 23 team division.
Mireille achieved a first place finish at last years event, so she headed into Coolangatta feeling quietly confident about being able to secure a repeat performance.
Smith and Ramos had a strong start to their tournament, securing the win in all of their pool games in two to three set matches.
This placed the duo in first place heading into the top eight playoffs.
Unfortunately the weather was unforgiving in the playoffs and the girls ended up dropping their number one position to end up in a match against the ACT team of Azad and Males.
The duo won their match and secured seventh place for the tournament, a fantastic achievement, that they will use as fuel for the future.
Alexandria, Mireille and Yasmim are all current Illawarra Academy of Sport beach volleyball scholarship recipients, and Parri is a past scholarship holder.
Their strong performances and development as athletes is a great testament to the training, coaching and support given by the IAS.
Events such as the AYBVC can lead to the pathway selection into a Volleyball Australia talented athlete programme.
Australian Olympic beach volleyball athletes such as Mariafe Artacho del Solar & Taliqua Clancy followed the same pathway.
Congratulation to all of our South Coast Volleyball players and we cant wait to see what the future holds.