In their first 3 pool matches of the tournament the Bay side wasn't really tested, beating Otago, Canterbury and Wellington - only dropping one set. However in their last match they lost to North Harbour relegating the Bay to second in their pool and a semi-final with unbeaten Auckland Manukau.
"Traditionally the Auckland teams bring a lot of energy and noise to the court," Shipton says.
"We knew if we could get on top early it would absorb a lot of that energy."
They did that by winning the first set 25-20, then losing the second 19-25.
Shipton says the team then dug deep to win the third 26-24 and fourth by the same margin to win the game and the right to face off with North Harbour, who had gone through the pool and playoffs unbeaten.
"We'd earned the right to be in the final but now we just had to play to our potential," Christie says.
Keeping accurate stats on the games helped with team analysis. They couldn't believe the number of service errors made in the previous days game against Harbour.
"We knew we had the fire power in the team to win but it's difficult to build any ascendancy when you're not getting it over the net to start with."
The night before the final they talked about how unacceptable it was, at this level, for serves to go into the net and how they'd need to adjust certain aspects of their game.
"I was so proud of the boys in the final when it was obvious they had made those adjustment." Shipton's performance in the match, combined with his teammates' efforts, was outstanding. Bay of Plenty defeated an in-form North Harbour 3 sets to 1 (25-21, 19-25, 25-22, 25-21), ending the tournament as national champs.
