Hudson Brown, the team's captain, had a steely look of resolve in his eyes during his team chat.

First match, Bellingen drew Coffs Harbour High School. The Coffs contingent were by far the shorter team, an assembly that wouldn't have looked out of place in the junior division. However, they were certainly not short on spirit displaying some decent play.

Nevertheless, the boys settled things quickly in two sets.

The second match, the boys faced Orara High school, whose team members were spotted performing impressive push-up routines during warm up. They seemed hungry for a challenge after winning their first game comfortably.

Bellingen started the game extremely well, leading 20 to 12 in a race to 25.

Josh Weldon, Tyran Fields and Hudson Brown were all instrumental in constructing this lead with a scintillating display of blocks, serves and spikes.

However, at this point Orara found some rhythm and the student who was spotted during the warm up unveiled the real extent of his talent, leading his team with some brilliant plays to steal the first set from under the Bello boys' noses.

The second set ended more quickly, despite the best efforts of BHS, Orara ran away with the set winning the match two sets to nil. The team as a whole are to be congratulated for their dedicated performance. This meant the boys were runner-up Mid North Coast Zone Champions.

The Bellingen HS Girls Volleyball team also attended the knockout and trials volleyball day at Sportz Central. These girls have trained well and have been zone champions for the last few years.

However, with some older girls spending more time on study commitments only three from last year attended. The young players coming through have worked well with the older girls and the team play, in general, was excellent. The standard on the day had improved from past years; however, the Bellingen girls stepped up and were dominant on the day.

Firstly, Bellingen defeated Orara convincingly two sets to zero with the Orara girls only able to reach 12 points in both games.

CHEC was keen to show their skills after defeating Coffs Harbour easily. However, it was the Bellingen girls who again dominated winning easily in two sets.

In recognition of their dominance on the day, the entire Bellingen team was selected in the Mid North Coast Zone team; however, only three were available to go.

Indianna Brodbeck, Jamika McAuley-Earnest and Leilani Coombes will travel to travel to Ballina for North Coast trials this Friday.

The BHS girls team will go on in the state knockout competition taking on the winners of Lower North Coast later this term.