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Post by digs on Jul 6, 2023 23:38:32 GMT -5
Finally home. What a ride. Didn’t finish where we wanted but I guess that’s true of everyone but one. SCVC was the dark horse that galloped out of no where. Didn’t see that coming. Saw a lot of great volleyball this week from a lot of phenoms. And so concludes the club journey from the west end. Catch y’all on the college side. SCVC is the real deal but was kinda unexpected. I’d just never seen them before or even heard much about them. But they were the best passing team I’ve ever seen at this level. And they took out the best team I saw this week (1st Alliance) and beat Dynasty twice. Well earned. It was a fun season.
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Post by vbtalk on Jul 7, 2023 11:23:51 GMT -5
Forgive me, I hope this isn't annoying to ask, but what are the levels of the divisions again? Open is the highest? Then what and so on...? I played HS and D1/D2 college volleyball, but my path was different than most and didn't involve club. Open is definitely the highest. The next highest would be National/USA but the level of difficulty there is highly dependent on who you ask. IMHO, USA is above National, but my region is highly competitive. A national bid is awarded to the best available among your region. A USA bid is earned through competition with all regions Open, National, USA, Liberty, American, and Freedom, in that order, are the levels for which teams have to qualify. Patriot is pay to play and has teams with a wide variety of skill levels. The National/USA debate isn’t new and both sides have merit. However, National consists of teams that mostly play Open at Qualifiers all year, while USA is mostly teams that don’t play Open all year. Trying to earn a National bid at a regional bid tournament (at least on Day 2 or 3) in a competitive region (TX, Cali, AZ, FL, etc..) is a lot like playing Open at a qualifier.
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Post by digs on Jul 7, 2023 12:17:58 GMT -5
I wasn't super impressed by Mullen after hearing all about her on here. Is she playing a different position with Cisneros out? Pierce is legit but looked like she get a little frazzled when they picked on her. The finals may not have been a great match for Abigail, but she had some absolutely dominant matches in the tournament. I’m sure she’d never make the excuse, but these four day tournaments are brutal, particularly for the big girls. Playing three matches a day for four days in a row is kinda ridiculous, and some players bodies handle the load better than others. And with the 8am start times, none of them get enough sleep. Same conditions for everyone, so no excuses. But by their third match on day 4, some of these players are running on fumes, Celsius, and naproxen. 😉
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vbruh
Sophomore
Posts: 184
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Post by vbruh on Jul 7, 2023 13:18:40 GMT -5
and several of these teams played both AAU and GJNC...the 16s only had 3 days between the two events, which is a crime.
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Post by notvballdad on Jul 7, 2023 14:08:48 GMT -5
The formats have always fascinated me and I understand a lot is out of necessity, particularly at the local/regional level. It makes sense to start smaller with local tournaments that are two days to start building endurance but the trade off can be 5 or 6 matches for the larger local ranking tournaments. Then we get to qualifiers and they go up to 3 days, regardless the number of teams and we do that format to figure out who should be playing for a national championship, which is a completely different format altogether. I agree that four day tournaments are brutal and there is no other time in their life, school, college where the best team will be determined by who can last the longest over 4 days playing 3-4 matches per day. 4 days is very different than 3 days, especially for the kids that are jumping a ton on teams that don't have the depth to rotate in extra hitters on the early days to save some legs.
It reminds me of the baseball playoffs in texas where it can be either a 1 day death match or a 3 game series that can be determined by a coin flip. What it takes to win a 3 day series and 1 day game are very different and building teams looks different for each of those situations.
I also wonder about recruiting. Its always been curious to me that in college you play 1 big game a night (except for some of the early season tune ups, etc.) when the kids are fresh and highly tuned to play in every way based on how programs optimize weekly programming. Then to scout, they come watch the players on day 1 when they are fresh, usually playing the lowest level of competition and as the competition level goes up over the course of the tournament, so does the fatigue factor. So its really rare that they ever see the kids, completely fresh and primed, playing against the toughest opponent.
Again, i understand necessity for regional qualifiers but I don't understand the 4th day for nationals in terms of actually volleyball, particularly when there is a very unforgiving crossover match that determines so much. I do understand it in terms of room nights, stay and play, etc. but somehow, 18s get it done in 3 days. Its fascinating that 18s can have a shorter season and nationals that actually resembles qualifiers and it magically works for only that one age but not anyone else.
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Post by OHVBKING on Jul 7, 2023 14:31:52 GMT -5
I think AAU format is a lot better than USAV format
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Post by notfromaroundhere on Jul 7, 2023 15:05:46 GMT -5
I wasn't super impressed by Mullen after hearing all about her on here. Is she playing a different position with Cisneros out? Pierce is legit but looked like she get a little frazzled when they picked on her. The finals may not have been a great match for Abigail, but she had some absolutely dominant matches in the tournament. I’m sure she’d never make the excuse, but these four day tournaments are brutal, particularly for the big girls. Playing three matches a day for four days in a row is kinda ridiculous, and some players bodies handle the load better than others. And with the 8am start times, none of them get enough sleep. Same conditions for everyone, so no excuses. But by their third match on day 4, some of these players are running on fumes, Celsius, and naproxen. 😉 With championship set scores of 24-26, 25-23, 11-15, I'd say the 2 pins on Dynasty gave everything they had left in the tank. They've had the luxury of 3 of the top pins in the country and that's what has always made them a threat. We watched day 4 and there is no way Mullens and Pierce didn't take over 100 swings each. These are 6'3" girls. With Cisneros healthy, this team would have won it all but unfortunately, looked like Dynasty needed more in the middle to rest them. Looking at AES they played the most sets in the tournament, so 4 points short is nothing to hang their heads over. Saw a tweet where they have finished 1st, 3rd and 2nd the last 3 years. Definitely will be interesting to see what happens next year for this team. Now that SCVC team was legit and balanced in every position for a shorter team. Kudos to them. Only one big jumper out of the middle but the pins have huge IQs. Lots of great matches on Day 4 out of gold.
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