Thirty teams participate in Volleyball-2019 tourney in New Jersey

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The Federation of Indian Associations partnering with Traditions Community Volleyball Group of South Plainfield, N.J., held an all-day Volleyball tournament Oct. 5, at All Seasons Sports Academy in South Plainfield.

There was an overwhelming response to the tournament in which a total of 30 teams with more than 300 players of Indian origin played volleyball games throughout the day in indoor volleyball courts, a press release from organizers said.

The competition was organized to bring volleyball enthusiasts from the Indian community under one roof, give players a platform to play some good volleyball and provide the facilities and the time for them to network with each other.

Organizers attended to every detail of the tournament, including water and other liquids, fruits and lunch, for participating teams.

During the opening ceremony of the event, national anthems of the USA and India were sung.

Alok Kumar, president of FIA, Ramesh Patel, chairman- FIA, past president of FIA Srujal Parikh, and executive vice president of FIA, Himanshu Bhatia, provided guidance and support to the mega event, the press release said.

The event was initiated and planned by Traditions Community Volleyball Group leaders, identified only by their first names, Sanjeev, Manav and Bharat,  who identified the venue, recruited the teams, defined rules, and executed the tournament.

The tournament was divided into two leagues after group games were over. League One consisted of top two teams from each group (A-F), and League Two had rank 13-18 teams out of 30 teams.

Both league winners and runners-up were awarded trophies and prize money. The reason for creating two leagues was to give more teams a chance to compete and inspire them to win, organizers said.

League 1 winners:

Winners – NY Spikers

Runner-Up – Rebelz

League 2 winners:

Winners – Terminators

Runner-Up – Edison Warriors

One of the highlights of the tournament was the participation of a volleyball team made up of high school kids of Indian origin, under the  leadership of Ashwin Yadav and Chandrasekaran Munuswamy. “These kids played excellent volleyball, and everyone has supported them and cheered every point they won, the press release said.

Traditions Community volleyball group members contributed money and sponsored the event helping make it a success.

“Kudos to our volunteers who took care of monitoring the games, tracking the wins and losses, updating scores, making sure teams and referees for the next matches are available on time and whatnot,” organizers said.

As a result of the success of this inaugural 2019 tournament, FIA and Traditions Community volleyball group have set the goal to make next year’s tournament also a grand success and to set the new standard in organizing the Volleyball tournament among the Indian community, organizers said.