Steel Forge Path to Final with Women’s Semi-Final Win Over the Storm
Perth Steel have won the first Women’s Semi-Final of the 2023 Scape Australian Volleyball Super League, defeating Adelaide Storm 0-3 at Red Energy Arena in Bendigo to be the first team to progress into Sunday’s Gold Medal match.
The Storm enjoyed the early running in the opening set, jumping out to a 12-9 lead on the back of a well-timed PowerPlay, but the Steel called their own PowerPlay right after the completion of the Storm’s and won two out of three rally points to have the sides level at 13-13. Shelby Maher, as she has been all season, was brilliant at the net with some inspirational blocks during their PowerPlay.
The sides went effectively point-for-point and ended up locked at 17-17. The rule changes for the finals series (a set must be won by 2 points) meant that there was still an opportunity for either side to fight for first blood, but Perth’s pressure at the net by Tessa Browne and Jackie Tamburri forced an error from the Storm, giving Perth an 18-20 set win.
The Steel then made the early work to jump out to a 5-13 lead early in the second set, with Elysse Hislop absolutely brilliant at the net on offence and defence. Perth kept racking up the points, and a powerful spike on set point by Caitlin Whincup gave the Steel a comfortable 10-18 set win.
Beth Carey and Vicki Wright both put in big early shifts for the Storm in the crucial third set, but Perth still got out to a 3-point lead, forcing Adelaide to call an early PowerPlay at 5-8. They only took one rally of their three, though, only taking the score to 7-10, and at the end of their PowerPlay Perth called their own, also only taking one rally of their three to leave the scores a 9-12.
As it had been all match, that slight edge stayed in favour of the Perth Steel, and Victoria Wells hit the winning point with an emphatic spike for 15-18 win third-set win. The Finals Series are best-of-five sets (unlike compulsory five sets for the regular season), meaning that the Steel had a comfortable straight sets win in three and can now focus on the Gold Medal match on Sunday.