On November 9-13, 2022, the Varsity Girls and Boys Volleyball team travelled to Kuwait to compete in a highly competitive NESAC Tournament. 

This international tournament was held at ASK (American School of Kuwait) in Salmiya. The competition included teams from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon, UAE, and Kuwait.  Results were that both teams ended up in 5th place out of 6 or 7 teams, but those results don’t deny the incredible efforts that they put in. 

The girl’s varsity team travelled with only 6 players and were known by all of the tournament participants as ‘The Fighting Six’. As only 6 players play on the court at all times, it was crucial for the girls to take care of themselves and not get injured, or else they would forfeit the matches. The girl’s team had 3 matches on the first day against AISA Abu Dhabi, IC Lebanon, and AISK Kuwait. They beat both AISA and IC but lost against ASK as it was a very close match. On the second day, they had matches against ASD Saudi Arabia and ACS Beirut, they lost both games as these teams placed 1st and 2nd in the tournament overall. The match against Beirut was extremely close as GAA was only 2 points (23-25) behind them in the end. The last day was the last match against another Lebanese team, to which they fought hard but lost in the end as it was another close match. Leading the girl’s varsity team to become 5th overall. 

The boy’s team included 5 matches against the same schools. On the first day there were matches against AISK Kuwait, QA Qatar, ACS Lebanon, ASD Saudi Arabia, and ASK Kuwait. The boys beat QA Qatar by 25 – 15 and 25 – 13. They also beat ACS Lebanon and the other 3 matches they lost. This leads the boy’s team to 5th place. But, the other matches were also lost, although all of them were extremely close. The boys had a very good tournament and were very actually surprised at how good and far they got into this tournament. Later awards were given to 1 person on each team to create the ‘NESAC Dreamteam’. For the boy’s team, Filip Dumitru Stefan won the award and said “I was honored to have received this award, the way our team grew and developed from the first day is truly outstanding.”

No matter the scores and placings of the GAA Wildcats, the participants were extremely pleased with the way the trip turned out. Putting aside the results, the students gained new morals and many friendships that they will be able to keep and be in contact with forever. As well as, going to travel to a new country and doing many different activities with their teammates each day. 

Hopes of the GAA teams are still high to beat these schools in other extracurricular activities as we will be playing them in February for Basketball and Football. Go Wildcats!