Shaunna Polley (left) and Julia Tilley on their way to a win at the Mauao Super Slam Beach Volleyball Tournament. Photo / George Novak
Shaunna Polley (left) and Julia Tilley on their way to a win at the Mauao Super Slam Beach Volleyball Tournament. Photo / George Novak
Mount Maunganui beach volleyball team Julia Tilley and Shaunna Polley love playing at home.
At the weekend, the pair were relentless on their way to claiming the Mauao Super Slam title, the fifth round of the GJ Gardner Homes New Zealand Beach Tour.
The court was surrounded by eager fans at the Mount Maunganui main beach on Sunday as the pair took on familiar foes Francesca Kirwan and Olivia MacDonald in the final.
While Kirwan and MacDonald had several point-scoring surges, they were never really in the fight as the home team cruised to a 21-15, 21-11 victory.
Polley said it felt great to get the win, a repeat of the first round of the series at the same venue.
"We're so stoked, it's been a long season and we've been putting in a lot of work so to get a really solid result like that is really awesome.
"We've been working a lot on strategising so at the moment we're communicating a lot with strategy but at the end of the day we just got the basics right - pass, set and spike.
"It's always good to win when you're in the Mount so we couldn't ask for anything more."
Tilley said the biggest satisfaction came from knowing they had played well and executed their plans.
Image 1 of 21: Mauao Super Slam Beach Volleyball Tournament
Julia Tilley
09 February 2020 Bay of Plenty Times- Photograph by George Novak
"Grinding through those first couple of days you have to stay focused because we can get lazy, thinking it might be easy but no game is easy."
Julia Tilley (left) and Shaunna Polley celebrate a point. Photo / George Novak
The pair plan to take a week off now and get their bodies right before turning their focus to the Continental Cup in March - an Olympic qualifier. While they admitted the idea of Olympic qualification was a nice one, it would be no simple task as they balance their athletic careers with full time work.
"It would be awesome but it's also very, very hard being a non-funded sport and pairing," Polley said.
Tilley said, realistically, players needed to be playing and training full time for the best shot at qualification.
"If you're trying to work it kind of takes away from that high performance, you have to fit trainings around work. We're training hard to put ourselves in the best position and on the day anyone can take it, anyone can win."
Meanwhile, another Tauranga local enjoyed success in the men's division, former Ōtūmoetai College student Mike Watson and his partner Johann Timmer winning their final comfortably against European pair Tobias Helbig and Gilbertas Kerpe.
"Johann and I have been playing well all tournament so we're stoked to finish off the event with a win like that.
Johann Tinner dives for the ball. Photo / George Novak
"This event is perfect, we always get a pretty decent crowd at this part of the beach and to have the weather like this is awesome. You don't get the opportunity to play in front of this crowd at this beach very often so we have to make the most of it."
Timmer said the pair had grown with every tournament they played in.
"Obviously this is our fourth national tour event of the summer so each event we've been learning some things. At the last one we had a big learning curve so we brought that into this one and I think we stepped up our game a bit more. Rather than letting other teams back into it we pushed on.
"I enjoy it, these events keep getting bigger and better. We have that drive to keep getting better and enjoying ourselves so hopefully that provides some entertainment as well."
Johann Tinner (left) and Mike Watson celebrate a point at the Mauao Super Slam Beach Volleyball Tournament. Photo / George Novak
Watson agreed.
"Win or lose we have fun and that's the big thing, we've been having fun all summer and I think it shows in our game when, we play well when we have fun. We relax, we trust each other and we trust in our abilities so we know we just have to play our own game to get some good results," he said.
