Finals heartbreak for the U20 girls in ACAMIS volleyball tournament

By Jamie Shum

The annual ACAMIS Volleyball competition returned at RCHK for the first time since 2019, on the 10th to 12th of November. The RCHK U20A girl's team made it to the final, narrowly losing to Hong Kong Academy after a tense struggle.

The ACAMIS volleyball competition is an annual inter-school tournament where top volleyball schools in Hong Kong compete in a seeding format tournament. The different schools take turns hosting, and for this year's tournament, RCHK was the host.

RCHK had a rough start, losing their first game 1-2 to Yew Chung International School. However, they quickly bounced back with a quick 2-0 win over Stanford American School. This momentum snowballed for three games, as they crushed all their opponents 2-0.

"I didn't think much about the win streak; I just wanted to make it to the finals and win," said Olivia Lo, the libero for the team.

Stacey Leung, the coach, said, "It helped them to visualize high-level winning plays."

These consecutive wins put them in a finals game on November 12th against Hong Kong Academy. Interestingly before this tournament, HKA had previously beaten the U20A girl's team 2-0 earlier in September.

"We knew HKA would provide an exciting match-up for us. Although we lost to them earlier this season, we had a very close game against them," said Leung.

"I knew HKA would be the most consistent team in the tournament; they worked very well together," Lo said.

HKA controlled most of the tempo throughout the game, quickly taking the lead in the first set. RCHK, on the other hand, showed a lot of perseverance, trailing behind to HKA in points multiple times throughout the first and second sets but still fighting for every point.

There were a few controversial moments during the match, most notably when an HKA fan yelled during one of Lo’s serves, causing her to miss. Lo described this as "extremely rude and disrespectful." This occurred after she had made a consecutive set of serves that won RCHK six points in a row.

HKA managed to narrowly claim the first set 28-26 in a wild back-and-forth deuce between the two.

In the second set, both teams managed to maintain a pretty even scoreline until a string of mistakes from RCHK allowed HKA to win a few points, which turned into a long run of consecutive points.

"I think some people were getting more nervous; I was getting nervous because the point gap kept widening. We didn't play aggressively and also started making more unforced errors," said Lo.

RCHK struggled to find an answer against HKA's never-ending attacks and seemingly impenetrable defense that never faltered. Although they managed a few points, HKA kept powering on and capitalizing on every mistake RCHK made, eventually reaching match point.

RCHK fans looked on with a mix of worry and hope as HKA stepped up to serve, "I kept on praying for a reverse sweep to come, but I understand it's hard not to get frustrated after losing so many points in a row," said RCHK fan Nathan Chim.

The last point was a back-and-forth scramble between the two sides. RCHK managed an attack, but it was received and countered by HKA. In the end, an HKA spike won them the game, as Olivia dived for it but barely missed it.

“Their level of effort and application was highly commendable as was their attitude to their loss in the final. We cannot be more proud of their efforts as a team,” praised RCHK Head of P.E. Lee Burns.