Jeppiaar women’s team retains volleyball trophy

The collective hearts inside the stadium skipped more than a beat unable to bear the mounting tension in the climactic stages as Jeppiaar Engineering College for women staved off a remarkable fightback from SDAT to deservedly cling on to the senior state volleyball title at Egmore Stadium on Saturday.

The three-time defending champion Jeppiaar beat SDAT in five gruelling sets 27-25, 25-22, 18-25, 23-25, 15-12 in an epic contest that lasted more than two hours. If this battle was fought on paper, Jeppiaar would have made short work of the paper tigers that SDAT was. Similar to its semi-final match against Dr. Sivanthi Club on Friday, Jeppiaar brooked no resistance en route to winning the opening two sets before taking its foot off the pedal and committing too many unforced errors in the third and fourth before mending its error-prone ways in the nick of time.

When everything looked lost, SDAT hung in resolutely, exerted pressure on its opponent by making it play one rally too many and saw a tiny little opening to make a match of it. Jeppiaar’s Arya stole the thunder once again as she found the gaps well to place her fierce smashes at critical moments of the game. At the beginning of the make or break third set, SDAT won four straight points and looked a completely transformed side. It raced ahead into a healthy lead and pocketed the set facing little difficulty. The fourth set, too, followed the same script and it looked like an upset was on the cards. But in the deciding set, Jeppiaar earned some cheap points to take home the trophy.