This weekend the top U23 and U19 Australian Volleyball teams will descend upon Sydney for the second annual Australian Junior Volleyball Championships (AJVC). The competition is set to begin Friday July 7th with finals day Sunday July 9th at Netball Central. This highly anticipated event will showcase the top Junior athletes in Australia and is free to attend for spectators. 

Volleyball NSW will have 7 Phoenix teams representing the state with multiple teams well positioned to stand on the podium.  

“We have had a very strong 8-week program leading into this event and our athletes and teams are looking fantastic. We have a very strong group of athletes who have been developing in the Phoenix Pathway over the past few years making this an exciting opportunity for us,” shared Martin Reader VNSW Head of Pathways.  

“Our coaching staff have done well to prepare our athletes and teams have had multiple game opportunities to test themselves before AJVC. We have a lot of momentum coming into this National Championships and everyone is excited to make the most of it,” Reader said. 

VNSW Phoenix have teams all divisions of the tournament. 

Our Under 23 Women’s team will feature top Phoenix athletes Emily Stirk and Sylvia Musel who have been important contributors in the Junior and Senior space. This team is also welcoming the return of Amy Leblang, who played for Crandall University in Canada, Jesse Mann, who is back from playing beach at University of Hawaii, and Emily Heintzelman, who is also back from playing beach in USA for Tulane University. Most notably Emily was recently selected as the libero for Team Australia Senior women’s team that will be competing internationally in the Asian Challenger Cup. 

On the men’s side the Under 23 Men’s we have exciting talents of Sean Bosschietter, Asim Ali, Jesse Beard, Josh Hillard and Rob Murdoch who all played Senior Phoenix in 2022. They will be complimented by Fraser Garrett and Seth Chen who are back from a big season playing professionally in Denmark, Kiefer Sinclair who won Rookie of the Year playing for Holland University in Canada, Riley Donovan who played for TMU in Canada and Armaan Dosanjh returning from Indiana Tech in the USA. 

The Phoenix program also welcomes back Steven Yarad, Hayden Jonson, Tim Ebbs and Dominic Clement who are all NSW athletes currently enrolled in the Australian Volleyball Academy (AVA). 

Congratulations for our SVL clubs who have a number of their athletes playing this weekend in our Phoenix teams. This is a great opportunity to get down to Sydney Olympic Park and support these rising stars!

This 3-day event at Netball Central in Sydney Olympic Park will be jam packed with a highly anticipated Sunday finals across all age groups. 

Come down and cheer Phoenix on as it is free for spectators. The schedule can be found here.

 https://junior-champs.volleyball.org.au/draw-results/