BY JOY OFASIA
THE Solomon Islands Volleyball Federation kicked off the women’s indoor volleyball trial event at the Solomon Islands National Institution of Sports Complex on Wednesday.
Solomon Islands Volleyball Federation President, Morris Mataki told SOLOMON WOMEN during yesterday’s event that 30 players were selected to undergo the trial.
“For the trial, we have identified 30 volleyballers to undergo the trial; the volleyballers have been undergoing months of training at the new indoor court facility at the Solomon Islands National Institution of Sports Complex.
“After the trial, we aim to select a final list of 18 volleyballers to train for the upcoming 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara,” he said.
Morris Mataki further explained that the required number of volleyballers to participate at the 2023 Pacific Games competition is 14, however, we want to select the final 18, so that if there are injuries among the team, we can still have backup players available for replacement.
The Solomon Islands Volleyball Federation President said the federation will continue to organize regular competitions to enable volleyballers ample time to put into practice what they have learned during their technical training on the court.
“In our training over the past five months, we have able to undergo gym, fitness, strength, and conditioning, nutrition, mindset training sessions under Solomon Islands National Institution of Sports Complex (SINIS) elite high-performance program,” he said.
He said that after the final selection of 18 players is finalized, they will go straight into a lot of technical training –that will focus more on direct coaching and practical sessions with volleyballers.
“Next month, they are expecting an international coach to join the team, the international expertise is contracted by the International Volleyball Federation to help with the technical coaching of the beach volleyball and indoor volleyball teams for the next three months in their early preparation for the 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara,” Mataki said.
Maitaki also thanked the Executive Director of SINIS, Aaron Alsop for his continues support towards both indoor and beach volleyball teams in their training.
“I want to thank Aaron Alsop for overall support in our early preparations, we are so fortunate to have him here and he is very instrumental in assisting our coaches to identify the potential 18 players for our squad.”
