B.C.’s longest running beach volleyball tournament delivered the goods over the Labour Day weekend, as over 150 players including two national team members turned out for the 24th annual Volleybash.
As always, Volleybash featured a co-ed triples tournament on Saturday, and Sunday was same-sex doubles. Both days featured divisions for players of all levels from the Open (Pro), on down.
“We had 50 teams out on Saturday and we had exactly 60 on Sunday, so it’s one of our larger ones,” said tournament founder Shane Hyde.
On Saturday, Hyde, along with Maverick Hatch and Jamie Broder — both Islanders and members of the Canadian national beach volleyball team — went 9-1 to take top honours.
Hatch and Broder were both in Moscow competing in an FIVB tournement four days prior to Volleybash. Hatch finished ninth in Russia, and was coming off first place finishes at tournaments in Switzerland and Berlin.
Broder is currently part of the top ranked women’s doubles team in Canada, “and Hatch is right up there in the men’s.”
In other results, the Oceanside/Nanaimo trio of Terry Palfrey, Scott Phy and Angela Manj won the SuperComp division.
ON SUNDAY Hatch teamed up with longtime Volleybash champ Alex Dechantal, going 8-1 to capture the Men’s Open division title.
In an exciting semi-final, a rematch of last year’s final, Hatch and Dechantel beat Mark Yuen and Gord Velemann for the second year.
On the women’s side Broder and former Vancouver Island University standout Danielle Hyde went unbeaten at 9-0 to take home the hardware.
“Awesome weekend,” Shane said after the sand had settled. “Obviously the weather helped, but we had a real good group of locals along with players from all over B.C., Alberta and Manitoba, and then having Maverick and Jamie out there, both national team members, it was great.”
“We had all the VIU women’s team here too,” said Hyde, who is heading into his 14th season as head coach of the VIU women’s volleyball team and 16th with the team, adding “all told we had 111 teams over the weekend, so pretty outstanding for little Parksville and high caliber volleyball for sure,” said Hyde,
Joining the VIU women’s team this season will be Parksville standout Jenna Pearce, who was also at Volleybash.
THIS JUST IN: On Sunday Hyde made it official that Parksville has been selected to host the 2014 and 2015 U18 Youth Beach Nationals.
“It’s been a whole process for us to put this bid in, and for us to get nationals is huge,” said Hyde.
Parksville, he points out, was awarded the two-year bid with the minimum number of courts (26) needed to be considered.
“I’ve been working with the city, we’d like to see six more courts, which would put is at 32 courts, which is the normal amount for a national championships.
“It’s a four day weekend where people from all over Western Canada will converge on Parksville, the next push will be to get the senior nationals here — that’s the longterm goal.”
