Junior Beach Volleyball Striving

The SVA Junior Beach Volleyball Programme was set up in 2017 and quickly provided opportunities to compete at the top level, firstly in the Youth Commonwealth Games in the Bahamas for Jennifer Lee and Emma Waldie where the girls competed fantastically well against some of the top nations in the Commonwealth. The year finished with an opportunity for both genders when Emma Waldie, this time paired with Hannah Paisley, and the boys pairing of Yusef Butt and Harris Ritchie competed in the first stage of the Youth Olympic qualifiers in Cyprus which was another wonderful opportunity to compete with the best in the world and see what work we needed to do to compete at that level.

2018 began with training in April with the plan to have regular regional sessions around the country and to bring those together in St Andrews with 4 National Team sessions where coaches and players could get together to discuss training and drills and to select squads to compete for Scotland in the competitions for that year.

The opportunities for 2018 are the Home Nations Junior Beach Volleyball Championships 6-8 August in Cardiff and the CEV SCD Under 19 Beach Volleyball Championships at Portobello 25-26 August.

Selections for Cardiff were concluded on 24th June in St Andrews and those selections were:

Boys:

David Mexson/Euan Fraser
Cameron Hook/Harris Ritchie
Jack McKelvey/Yusef Butt
Craig Murray/Jack Anderson
Rory Russell/Haydon Campbell
Murray Paterson/Cameron Reid

Reserves:
Euan Armstrong
Fraser Purdie

Girls:

Emma Waldie/Nicole Ramage
Juliet Pinto/Emi-Mireilla Muñoz
Megan Hall/Fynn Donaldson
Lisa Waldie/Jessica Gillies
Kate Renforth/Karolina Wroblewska
Heather Hamilton/Kirsty Ross
 
Colin Paterson – Head Coach & Selector (Girls)
Ross McKelvie – Coach & Selector (Boys)

Team Managers:
Yvonne Kennedy
Ken Fraser

We continue to try to provide opportunities for our junior athletes to compete internationally and to dovetail what we do with the indoor programmes so that athletes can continue to train and compete in both Volleyball and Beach Volleyball.

We are all looking forward to competing with the other Home Nations in August and to the future of Volleyball and Beach Volleyball in Scotland.

Colin Paterson
SVA Junior Beach Volleyball Head Coach