On Saturday morning our students had an opportunity to participate in a volleyball competition to challenge their skills and team work. Jan.26 , at 9 o’clock, the registration phase began where eight out of nine teams managed to register their teams for the competition.
“Each team must have six boys and two girls,” said Erik Orazaliev, Director of the Sports Center, while discussing the registration rules. “Some teams struggled to find girls—girls who play well,” he added. But this seemed to be a problem only for male groups, because there was a team called “Spike” consisting only of girls.
“We hold this volleyball every year according to the curriculum to make it a holiday for students, so they can play and make new friends,’’ said Orazaliev about the purpose of organizing this tournament.
The first phase of competition was the group stage where every team had to win two out of three games to go to semifinals. The format of the game was shorter than professional games. It was a best of three format where in every game teams had to score at least fifteen points instead of twenty-five with a gap of two points. Each game featured two point-checkers and one judge.
“There were some contentious moments during the game, but everything was quickly resolved, and the students always calmly accepted their mistakes,” Natalia Pereverzeva, the judge of this event.
After the group stage, there was a break with pizza and drinks. Some students discussed the game moments during lunch, some students started training instead of lunch.
The semifinal games were more intense and engaging. In the match for third place, the previously mentioned team, “Spike,” faced off against “Staff,” a team of event managers. “Spike” lost the match with a score of 2:1.
In the final, where many teams have left, the loud ambience of students with their chants turned into silence. Winners of this competition were a team of second-year students called “Alash”.
“The event went very good, brought a lot of positive things. We didn’t expect so much emotion from the players.” said Amir Aitpay, one of the winners. “We were initially unsure about winning, but after some games, we realized that we could win and it wouldn’t be so difficult.”