Kilkenny plays host to National Volleyball Finals

Volleyball Ireland is hosting their cup finals at the home of Kilkenny Spartans this weekend, with everybody encouraged to come along.

The Association Cup and shield finals will take place for the first time since 2019, with tremendous excitement amongst the volleyball community. 

In great news for all in the South East, the flagship finals will be at Kilkenny's Watershed Arena on Saturday/Sunday, April 1st and 2nd

The Women's Cup gets the action underway on Saturday with the meeting of Premier outfit Gardians and Division 1 league leaders, Balbriggan. That is pencilled in to get underway at 3.00 pm.

The Women's Association Shield kicks off Sunday's Finals Day schedule, where Premier Division leaders Santry Dublin Volleyball Club Calypso will be challenging a confident DVC Lions. 

The men's action gets underway afterwards, with Men's Shields pitting Gardians against DVC Abu. There is a 2.00 pm start scheduled here.

The highly-anticipated Men's Cup follows to cap off a busy schedule Sunday's showpiece will witness the meeting of UCD and Aer Lingus, with a titanic clash expected at 4.30pm. 

Entry is free at The Watershed Kilkenny Arena so get down to watch all the best club volleyball players in action.

Spartan Volleyball Club players will be on hand to lend its support to the volleyball showdown, providing line judges and ball children from the successful Junior Spartan Volley programme 

Congratulations are in order for the u14 Spartan team that competed in Limerick last Sunday for the VLY 4 v4 Mixed U14 National Finals. 

The Spartan Warriors marched all the way to the final, winning every game en route, but became unstuck against the tournament victors, Kildare VC, taking home the silver medal. 

Meanwhile, the Premier and Division 2 Spartan teams travelled to UCD for league action. In Premier, the home team were given a run for their money in the first two sets, but the result was never in doubt as experience trumped youth to take the match 25:19, 25:18, 25:9, 

Division 2 were next up against UCD, and while they competed well in the early stages of each set, UCD always managed to pull away midway through each, and won the game 25:12, 25:11, 25:12. 

SETU Carlow were also in action on the road, they picked up the first league of the season, triumphing in Longford on Sunday winning the match 3-0

In school news, Presentation Secondary School are through to not one but two Irish School Cup finals for 1st and 2nd year students after successive victories in their semi finals. 

The Loughboy school have now qualified for the Division B *AND* Division C All Ireland Junior Volleyball Finals on Monday May 8th in UL, with both squads overcoming 3 teams in their pools to reach the National Finals. It's an incredible achievement and the 1st time in the school's history to qualify for 2 finals in the same age category in the same year! 

All roads lead to University of Limerick on Monday May 8th for the finals!