Colegio Aleman defeated Carmen de Viboral 2-1 to take home the Copa Columbus Boys Volleyball championship in the TCS coliseum April 8.

Aleman struggled in the first set losing 21-25, but recovered to sweep the second set and the tie-breaker (15-11) using its strong blocks and attacks. San Ignacio beat Colegio Canadiense in the match for 3rd place. Neither TCS team made the semi-finals. 

“I felt great. To be honest, it was a very difficult game but we won in the third set. A very tough game, but we won,” Lucas Palacio, Colegio Aleman Boys Volleyball player, said.

The final game went to a third set after being tied in sets 1-1. Points were hard to score because both teams had very strong defense. Colegio Aleman’s trustworthy tactic was to set the ball to the outside hitter Lucas Palacio who scored many of the points with his spikes. 

“I sensed the pressure but we were clearly superior, it felt really good to win after all our hard work and the sportsmanship was really felt,” Palacio said. 

The teams that participated in Copa Columbus were: Columbus Yellow and Blue, Canadiense, San Ignacio, Carmen de Viboral and Colegio Alemán. The final ranking was Colegio Aleman who took the championship, Carmen in second place, San Ignacio in third followed by Canadiense and TCS. 

“The tournament was really intense, you could really feel the pressure of the public cheering you on, you could feel how your team depended on you,” Geronimo Botero, Grade 10, said. 

According to TCS Volleyball Coach Anibal Gaviria the outstanding players were Simon Murillo, Pedro Gomez and Cristobal Villegas. Murillo scored multiple points with his spike offense. Villegas and Gomez, both Grade 10, who began training a few months ago were described as players with a great character. 

“The game of Pedro Gomez surprised me a lot yesterday, he played with a lot of personality, even with the amount of pressure he had. He was one of the players that surprised me the most, the same with Cristobal who played with a lot of character,” Gaviria said. 

In the qualifying round, TCS fell to Carmen de Viboral in a highly contested match with the first set won by Carmen 25-11. Columbus needed to sweep sets 2 and 3 in order to make semi finals. When the teams got to the end of set 2, the game was tied 25-25 and went to overtime. Finally, Carmen de Viboral won 35-33 and advanced to the semifinal. 

 “We were frozen up when we got the ball, we have to be ready to get it and have a good attack. We received most of the balls poorly and then we couldn’t have a great attack that would be the point makers,” Nicolas Mejia, Senior, said.