Storm Men Breeze Past Heat, Into Final

The Adelaide Storm have cruised into the 2023 Scape Australian Volleyball Super League Men’s Gold medal match with a 3-0 Semi-Final win against the Canberra Heat at Red Energy Arena in Bendigo.

Adelaide eased to an opening set win, 18-10, on the back of some clever play at the net by Cooper Peacock and some impressive hitting by Ryan Scutter and Brendan Clewes. Relatively unchallenged, the team that finished top of he ladder after the regular season showed why they came into the finals series as heavy favourites for the title.

In the second set Canberra called a PowerPlay early and won all three of their rallies to jump out to a 4-8 lead. The Storm slowly reeled them in, reducing the deficit and then taking the lead at 17-16, but missed their set-point chance, forcing the teams to play off for a lead of two under the new rules variation for the finals series. Both had chances but couldn’t find the breakaway point, until Cooper Peacock won a crucial rally to give Adelaide another chance at set-point – this time forcing an error from the Heat to take the second set 21-19.

Desperate not to let the match slip away, Heat called their PowerPlay early again in the third set at 3-2 and won two out of three rally points to put themselves into the lead. The Storm responded in kind, calling their PowerPlay immediately after, forcing the set back to level at 8-8 once they were done. But the work of both Cooper Peacock and Harrison Peacock guided the Storm to a comfortable third set win 18-10.