The John Bugeja Tribute matches, named after the late president of the Malta Volleyball Association (MVA), every year kick off the new volleyball season, giving the opportunity to clubs and teams to evaluate their players’ fitness and form prior to the beginning of a new campaign.

Last weekend, the winners and runners-up of the two groups in the ladies’ category met in the semi-finals on Saturday with the winners progressing to Sunday’s final.

Both semi-finals turned out to be tense affairs with Paola Volley and Playvolley stretching Balzan Flyers and Fleur de Lys 1 respectively until the latter managed to turn the balance in their favour with an identical 3-1 scoreline.

After an encouraging performance in the semis, Playvolley also produced good volleyball in the match for third place to overcome Paola Volley 3-1 after the latter had taken a difficult first set 27-25.

Alan Gauci’s girls turned the game around through a solid display of teamwork, thus earning a respectable third place in this year’s competition.

Balzan Flyers continued where they left off last season, beating Fleur de Lys 1 3-0 in the final. With Zane Malasevska in fine form, Balzan managed to keep FDL at bay for most of the match, although the latter tried to block and defend as much as possible. This was Balzan Flyers’ first honour of the season as they replicated last year’s success.

This was not the case in the men’s category where Fleur de Lys were unable to retain the pre-season honour after losing to Valletta Mapei.

Valletta, ably led by Goffredo Guazzoni off the court, and setter Josef Pirotta on court, claimed the first two sets after taking the lead midway through each set.

Fleur de Lys started better in the third to go 11-8 up, forcing Valletta to call a time-out.

Valletta started playing better from this point onwards, overtaking their opponents at 15-13 and going on to win the set 25-22 and the match 3-0.