13 Jul 2024
England's Harsum and Bunton follow in Bellos' footsteps at CEV U18 Beach European Championships
Bailey Harsum and Lewis Bunton became the country’s first boys team since Javier and Joaquin Bello in 2017 to reach the quarter-finals.
And girls duo Molly Quinn and Alice Jagielska also acquitted themselves well by reaching the last 16 stage.
It is a marked improvement for both Lewis and Alice, who both played in the tournament last year with different partners and finished joint 29th.
The results also saw them finishing as the best performing NEVZA country (boys) and joint best-performing NEVZA country (girls).
The two pairings will now play off tomorrow to decide their final overall position.
Having both made it out of their respective groups in third place, the knockout stages saw both teams play Slovenian opponents in the round of 24.
Bailey and Lewis took to the sand first and secured a confident 2-0 victory (21-16, 21-14) over Predan and Bregar.
Molly and Alice then followed suit against Kotrun and Blatnik, albeit they were made to work harder for their victory, winning the first set 21-16, dropping the second 21-6 but then bouncing back to secure the deciding tie break 15-11.
The boys team set up a match against Ukrainians Marynin and Romanyshyn, who had won Pool A, and got off to a great start, taking the first set 21-18.
The Eastern Europeans hit back to take the second 21-14, but Bailey and Lewis were ready for the tie break and surged into a 12-2 lead before eventually closing it out 15-8.
The girls, meanwhile, took on Witjes and Eekhof, the third seeds from the Netherlands, who had finished top of Pool C.
They gave it their all but were unable to match the boys in reaching the last eight, going down 21-14, 21-7 in a match that was always going to be a tough proposition.
Bailey and Lewis’ quarter-final paired them against France’s unbeaten duo of Louis and Duval, who were strong favourites going into the match.
The England players, however, fought hard and, despite dropping the first set 21-14, set up a tie breaker by clinching the second 23-21 with some superb play.
But clinching a semi-final berth proved just beyond them as they missed out 15-12 in the decider.
Tomorrow, the boys will play Austrians Boyd and Kolev while the girls meet Poland’s Przbyszewka and Wolny.
You can follow the action across Volleyball England’s social media on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X.
