Pirates Women Through to Final, Extract Revenge on Vipers

The Queensland Pirates have booked their place in Sunday’s Gold Medal match with an emphatic 0-3 win over the Melbourne Vipers in the Scape Australian Volleyball Super League Women’s Semi-Final at Red Energy Arena in Bendigo.

A tight opening set saw Melbourne fight to a 13-12 lead early, but some breathtaking hitting at the net by Rebecca Ingram for the Pirates helped Queensland claim the next six points unanswered to comfortably take the set 13-18.

The Pirates maintained a one-to-two rally point buffer over the Vipers for much of the second set. Both teams called their PowerPlays at the same time with the score at 8-11, but Queensland came out the better, winning two rally points to one, to advance the score to 10-15. The Pirates maintained their advantage for the remainder, with Scarlett Rudder slamming in a huge set-winning point to claim the second 12-18.

The third set also started close, with the sides trading early rallies and staying mostly level. Queensland eventually pulled away to a 7-10 lead and called their PowerPlay in an attempt to press their advantage, but the Vipers managed to defend all three PowerPlay rallies to level the scores at 10-10, take some momentum, and then call their own PowerPlay to stay in the set and match.

Melbourne won two out of their three PowerPlay rallies to find themselves leading the third set, and kicked on to get to a 16-13 lead. But Rebecca Ingram was again huge for the Pirates, involved in saving crucial points and winning them at the net, forcing the sides to 17-17 and setting up the need to win by 2 rally points due to the rule changes for the finals series.

Kayla Cantrill had the final say with a powerful winning shot at the net for the Pirates as they took the third set 17-19 and thus, the match 0-3, sending Queensland through to the Gold Medal match to face Perth Steel on Sunday.