EUROPE CONQUERED

Bahrain School’s invincible Falcons senior boys’ volleyball team followed up success in a GulfWeekly-sponsored tournament in the kingdom by being crowned kings of Europe for the first time in 20 years.

The players travelled to the Aviano Air base in Italy and came into the DoDDS (Department of Defence Dependents Schools)-Europe boys’ volleyball championship not knowing any of their opponents. But the Falcons left knowing they are the 2015 champions after finishing the night winning all sets played during the tournament.

“We come in blind every year,” Bahrain coach George Wells said. “It’s kind of rough for us.” But the Falcons’ competition from Germany, Italy and Spain had it rougher, as Bahrain swept every match, including the championship decider against Italy’s Marymount International, 25-23, 25-19, 25-22.

“I felt our team was very strong and competitive,” Wells told the Stars & Stripes military newspaper. “To be able to go through and not lose one set – not one set – through the whole tournament, is pretty amazing.”

The Bahrain School Falcons faced five teams from Germany, Italy and Spain. After the final game, the crowd gave the squad made up of Delta Bradshaw, Tilly Hogan, Ahmed Buhidma, Asem Marzouq, Noah Perry, Jamil Awad, Danny Samad, Fadi Aghim, Ricardo Cordova, Jose Chianello, Anas Abed and Idriss Boujrad, all aged between 17 and 18, a standing ovation.

Wells, and his fellow coach and wife, Janet, went into the championship match with a plan of attack, to stay on the attack, unchanged. He added. “I felt if we could generate more offense than the other team, we could prevail.

“We just took it one set at a time and that’s what I told them, that’s all we can do,” Wells said. “We always tried to do our best.”

And that was the case, as the Falcons captain Abed put away 17 kills and assisted teammates seven times to push Bahrain ahead during the final clash.

“He’s a well-rounded player and he plays smart,” Wells said of the teenager’s mental attitude, athletic abilities and intelligence.

Abed was voted the tournament’s MVP (Most Valuable Player).

Most of the Europeans had played each other during the course of a regular season but the Falcons just face a few schools in the kingdom … although they showed their prowess at the recent Bahrain Private Schools Sports League’s championship tournament, sponsored by GulfWeekly.

The Senior Boys Volleyball Finals were staged at the British School of Bahrain and saw Bahrain School, St Christopher’s School, Riffa Views International School (RVIS) and Modern Knowledge School (MKS) face off in a thrilling display of top quality volleyball matches.

The tournament was run on a knock-out basis where the winners of each league (North/South) played the runners-up of the opposite league in a semi-final match. The final was fittingly played between the top teams of both leagues. A determined St Christopher’s put up a brave fight but Bahrain School proved too tough and won convincingly in two sets.

It proved to be an important warm-up for the coming European challenge. The DoDDS are a network of schools, both primary and secondary, that mainly serve the dependents of US military and civilian personnel in three areas of the world; Europe, Pacific, and Eastern United States and Caribbean areas.

The unbeaten Euro tournament scoreboard is now displayed at the entrance of the school in Juffair.