TAUNTON School student Georgia McGovern has had a busy two weeks playing for the England Under-17 and Under-19 volleyball teams in Denmark.

McGovern, a Year 11 student from Henlade near Taunton, co-captained the England U17 team in the North European Volleyball Zonal Association (NEVZA) championship in Denmark.

England qualified for the quarter-finals but were beaten by eventual gold medal winners Denmark.

This was McGovern’s last England U17 match, having been their starting setter (playmaker) for the last three years.

The 15-year-old then joined the U19 squad for their NEVZA tournament, where England progressed to the semi-finals for the first time ever.

Again it was Denmark, the eventual winners, who proved too strong for the young English team, and McGovern and her team-mates were very narrowly beaten to the bronze by Norway.

England coach Paul Welsh commended McGovern's strong performance throughout the championship, saying: “Georgia had a fantastic NEVZA U19 competition.

"She has trained extremely hard and this hard work was there for everyone to see.

"She ran our offence exactly to the gameplan we had in place, which helped the team to finish in a record fourth place finish.

"A key strength for Georgia this year was her serve pressure; she topped the statistics for most aces and positive serves in the whole competition.

"When you add this to the huge success she had offensively, in my opinion she was in the top two setters within this year’s competition.”

McGovern has now appeared 43 times for England, playing against a total of 15 different countries.