25-26 June 2011
The St Andrews Matalan Beach Volleyball Championships
As known by many, St Andrews has its own climate, and the weekend of the Matalan Beach Volleyball Championships thankfully proved to be the case. As Scotland seemed to be suffering from rain St Andrews remained dry and warm for the whole weekend.
The pool matches for the Men’s Championships saw Polish team Konrad Krawczyk and Marcin Mosinski qualify first along with Jack McKeown and Jamie McHardy from pool 1. Pool 2 had Colin Paterson and Seain Cook qualify ahead of Felix Gerhardinger and Callum Moir. The men’s game is still leading the women’s in Scottish Beach Volleyball and now has Beach Volleyball specialists unknown to the indoor game.
The women’s pool matches produced the intriguing final of Shelly Paterson with German partner Anna Fischer against Latvian Natalie Durkaca with German partner Alex Toloczko.
However the hardest route to the final was in the Junior Men’s Championship. Three teams finished on equal points. Sets count back meant Craig Brown and Rhys Arthur qualified in first place. About 20 minutes of counting and checking were required to separate eventual finalists Michael Lynch and Jonathan Black ahead of Connall Tennant and Chris McHardy. The junior men’s finals are always exceptional and these guys did not disappoint, with Brown and Arthur winning through to the 2011 Championship by 2 sets to 1.
The intriguing women’s final went set 1 to Paterson/Fischer 25-18, set 2 to Durkaca /Toloczko 25-15. The greater beach experience of Paterson /Fischer won through in the deciding set 15-8 to lift the 2011 Women’s Championship Trophy.
Paterson/Cook saw off McKeown/McHardy 2-0 in the first semi- final to face Krawczwk/Mosinski, winners by the same 2-0 result against Gerhardinger/Moir. In a brilliant display of Beach Volleyball from both teams refereed by Sue Kee and Iain Cook, it was Krawczyk/Mosinski who won through 23-21,21-18 to become the 2011 Men’s Matalan St Andrews Beach Volleyball Champions.
The day was completed with Iain Cook awarded the spirit of the tournament award and his son Seain awarded player of the tournament.
Colin McGinlay