Saturday 20th October: The Scottish Cup first round started with a bang 
when non-league teams competed for the first time this season against our established National League teams.
Orkney VC made the long trip south to take on Bellshill Cardinals in the Men’s Cup and Edinburgh Jets II in the Women’s Cup. Both teams left with defeats but worked extremely hard during the match. The Men lost 3-0 and the Women put up a bigger fight, however lost 3-1. Belinda Warnock, coach of both the Men’s and Women’s side gave her opinion on the weekends events, ‘We are disappointed in both results. Although we are working hard in training, our lack of match practice is a real handicap for us. Ideally to compete in the Scottish Cup competition, we should be playing more than one match every 2 or 3 months, but this isn’t possible due to travel costs and other unrelated issues. This is something Orkney Volleyball Association is looking to address by setting up a small internal volleyball league in order to raise the standard through competition.’
Glasgow Mets II and NUVOC served up a cracking tie with a 3-2 victory for the Glasgow side and Edinburgh Jets II beat a youthful Beacon side 3-1. Two university clubs took to the court to take on National League opposition, with Dundee University being defeated 3-0 by South Ayrshire II and Stirling University defeating South Ayrshire III in their first ever match in the Scottish Cup.
In the Women’s competition, teams outwith the National League had very successful matches against their opposition. Edinburgh University entering the Scottish Cup for the first time in over 20 years overcame a determined Dundee side 3-1 to win their first cup fixture in a tight match. North Grampian who are veterans of the Scottish Cup overcame South Ayrshire II 3-0 after their long journey to Prestwick from Elgin.
The Men’s John Syer Trophy opened up this weekend with all top 4 seeds picking up victories in some tricky ties. Last year’s Winners City of Edinburgh travelled to City of Glasgow Ragazzi and came away with a comfortable 3-0 victory, the runners up Kilmarnock Blaze were shocked in the first set away to Edinburgh Jets but managed to come through the match 3-1. Bon Accord travelled to Dundee and won 3-0 while Glasgow Mets won a tight match away to South Ayrshire 3-1.
Last year’s winners in the Womens competition Edinburgh Jets opened up with a straight forward victory 3-0 away to South Ayrshire. City of Edinburgh had a scare in the first set against NUVOC but managed to hold on to the set and also took the match 3-0. Troon Team Ayrshire went to play NLVC in
the Top Team’s Cup with some trepidation. They had 3 of their starting squad missing from the match which had coach Vince Krawczyk a little worried. Troon started the match a little disorganised and NLVC took full advantage of this with some good play by Caitlin McEwan and Lindsay Coburn to take the first set 25-22. Troon responded in the 2nd set with excellent serving from Elaine Krawczyk and the stability of the passing unit by Jones, Ramage and Barbour allowing Troon to run offence at will and take the set 25-16. The 3rd and 4th sets were extremely close but Troon managed to hold on and win 3-1 taking a crucial opening victory.
This weekend the National League resumes with some big matches in each of the divisions.
