Last Weekend saw PMVC U18 Women make their National Cup debut against two very experienced teams. The Preliminary Round was also hosted by the Plymouth side at Plymstock School.

Their first opponents were Beach Academy Taunton Breakers who got to the last 8s last season. PMVC had a nervous start as Beach Academy opened up a huge lead thanks to some probing serves which put Plymouth under a lot of pressure. With a near 10 point lead, PMVC started to turn the tide but still lost the set with a respectable score of 25-18.

Set 2 saw PMVC with the momentum from the previous set and we're leading thanks to some dominant serving from Victoria Wilkins, who has experience playing in National League. With a lead 17-16, to a 20-20 score line, Taunton were able to break away at the end to seal the game 25-20. An awesome but challenging first game.

The second game in the triangular fixture saw Wiltshire Mavericks take The Breakers into a 3rd set but lost as Taunton showed their dominance and topped the group 16-25, 27-25, 5-15.

So the final game was to decide who went through as the 2nd qualifier between PMVC and Wiltshire Mavericks. Both teams shared the lead throughout the first set but PMVC pipped Wiltshire to the finish line 25-23 thanks to the nerveless serving from meg Leeds. The 2nd set saw Mavericks take an early lead at 5-2 but PMVC refused to be steamrolled and hit back with some fine serving runs from Victoria and also the youngest player in the PMVC squad, Anya Brentnall who guided Plymouth to match point at 24-17. PMVC thought they had won the game due to a backcourt hit fault from Mavericks but it was disputed and in the true spirit of the game, PMVC were happy to replay the point. It started to get nervous when Wiltshire claimed 3 points in a row but after a Time out to calm the nerves from Coach Andrew Potter,  and with such a commanding lead, Wiltshire just ran out of steam and Plymouth won the set 25-20, the match 2-0 and cemented their place in the next Round.

A historic and impressive debut for PMVC who will travel to North Devon on 10th October to play Beach Academy and Cardiff Celts in Round 1.

Coach Potter was pleased with the progression of junior volleyball in the city "it has been a long wait for some of our girls to play for their City. Megan and Victoria have played in junior competitions before at U16 level with other teams in the SW as there were never enough players make up a full squad with in Plymouth. This win in tantamount to the success of our Satellite Club at Ivybridge - 5 of our squad had never played 6 a side volleyball before and now they are competing on a national stage. An amazing achievement for them and I am just so proud of the way they played as a team a and with great spirit and respect too"

PMVC Captain, Chelsea Mitchell was overjoyed with the result "we were so nervous at the start but we proved we can play well. We want to thank all of the supporters who came to cheer us on today. It was really special"