Volleyball: Arena to host elite teams

Tonight the ASB Arena at Baypark will host two of the strongest volleyball clubs in the country when Hamilton come to town to play Tauranga.

The clubs' top men's and women's team will face off at the same time so fans can watch two games of elite volleyball. The match will start at 7:30pm. Entry is free so come along and enjoy the action with the family.

Tauranga has made a slow start to the season with two weekends of road games. Friday will be a great chance to start to build the momentum necessary to improve on last year's performance that saw the women take silver and the men take bronze at the national club championships.

Hamilton's men sit one place above Tauranga after Hamilton upset defending silver medallists Sparta (Auckland) in round two. While Hamilton women sit one place below Tauranga women on the north zone ladder, the same position they finished the season last year at the club nationals.

Tauranga women have only four players returning from last year's team in captain Lisa Claassen, Simone Head, Kim Wiersma and Stephanie Pierce.

Returning to the club after playing for other NZ teams are Nicole Stanley, a former NZ setter, also her sister, Rachelle Yardley (Scorps), Harriet McAdam (Hamilton) and Melissa Ruru (Rotorua), plus four local school girls Alice Bain, Ella Duggan (Tauranga Girls'), Claudia Colenso (Mount) and Abbie Meredith (Otumoetai).

Tauranga men have a youthful team featuring four NZ Under-19 reps Liam Matheson, Daryl Lewis, Brad Fullerton and Thomas Reid, and are lead by former NZ Under-19 rep Cameron Shaw.

The Northern Zone league has been going from strength to strength in the past three years and so far this season the level of volleyball has been exceptional.

Tauranga men's coach Tim Cleaver says tonight's matches will pit two closely matched teams against one another, and with a few Tauranga natives in the Hamilton teams, there are a lot of bragging rights on the line.