Club Report Spectacular #1 |
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Kevin Hitt
May 16, 2008 Well, it's been a while and there have been all sorts of fun and interesting things going on here at Goldenwest VBC. So let's get to it: Congrats to the following teams on their bids the Junior Olympic National Championships in Dallas, Texas: 18-Asics Our 18-Asics team has been rewarded with a National bid to participate at the Junior Olympics taking place in Dallas, Texas between June 26th and June 29th. This bid comes despite losing both setters recently to various health issues. Megan Johnson (University of Wyoming) will be sidelined indefinitely and Paige Livingston (Harvard University) will come back after rehabbing a sore back. On May 4th during Mandatory #3, coach Jimmy Munoz pulled up with 16-Asics setter Dana Holt and went to play. After going 1-2 in pool play with a win over perennial powerhouse Epic 18-Ozh, 18-Asics dropped two hard fought matches against Rancho Valley 18-1 and Laguna Beach 18-1s. On Saturday, May 17th, Goldenwest 18-Asics will be quarterbacked by Mater Dei setter Monica Stauber. The wrinkle here is that because of CIF rules, Jimmy Munoz will be stepping down and will have no contact with the 18-Asics team until June 12th. This is déjà vu for Munoz who made the same move last year with his 17-Asics team which eventually lost in the National Division Championship Final 2 games to 1 against Nebraska Elite. Goldenwest prides itself on preparing its athletes for the next level and would like to recognize the following athletes on their signings: Good luck to the Goldenwest 18-Asics team in Mandatory #4 this weekend. 17-Asics Our 17-Asics team carries the torch for the club this year as they have a bid to the Open Division at the Junior Olympic National Championships in Dallas, Texas starting June 28th. They qualified by traveling to the lone star state of Texas in April and winning the silver division bracket. On day one of play, 17-Asics defeated Desert Valley Sky and Asics Willowbrook 17s before dropping the final match to Texas Advantage. On day two still in the gold division 17-Asics defeated Invasion 17s then dropped their match to KJ 17s in a three game thriller by the scores of 18-25, 25-20, 14-16. Day three saw 17-Asics still fighting in the gold division but needed to win their pool to be in the gold flight. They fought valiantly beating a tough Impact 17s in three, but then dropped the final match of their three-team pool to Extec 17-National 21-25, 20-25. 17-Asics went on to win the Silver Division and the trickle down bid by defeating TAV 17-Molten and SCVA rival SCVC 17-Nike in two games. Here is an excerpt of what Prepvolleyball.com wrote about our 17-Asics team at the Lone Star Qualifier: The only pool I haven't told you a little about is Pool 4, which was a battle between pre-season national No. 1 Invasion, Seattle's KJ VBC, an Open qualifier the past two years, and unheralded Golden West, a fairly new team with a familiar name at head coach: Craig Pazanti, in his first year at the 17s level after several successful years in the 18s division. GW started things off by sweeping Invasion. Elizabeth Younglove, who hadn't set before this season, did a terrific job of distributing to her middles Rachel Buckley and Jennifer Palmquist and outside hitters Elizabeth Fontanilla and Courtney Moeller who at 6-1 was the most impressive new (to me) player I watched all tournament long. GW had a chance to win the pool in its next match, but could not get by KJ despite great work in Game 2 by Moeller. A kill and ace by Jessie Genger and Marlayna Geary's smash off the block helped KJ lead, 8-7, at the changeover, but the teams battled point for point into overtime in the third set. Finally, after Fontanilla's kill wiped out one KJ match point, successive kills from Genger and Geary secured victory for the Evergreen State squad. Invasion, the only team in the pool without a win so far, faced the prospect of having to beat KJ to force a playoff to stay in contention. Invasion did just that, winning in three, then took on KJ again in a playoff to 25. Strong play from Brooke Fay and Jessica Kopp helped the Kansas City-area team win, 25-18, to reach the Tantalizing Twelve and oust KJ from contention. KJ would lose only one more match, to Amarillo Elite in the Flight 1 finals for 13th overall. On Saturday night, four pools of three played out, each not previously qualified team hoping to reach the Gold bracket but knowing that getting to Silver was an absolute must to have any kind of chance. And, wouldn't you know it, four of the five teams left in 17 Open without a bid did just that, winning the one match needed to get to Silver. Austin, TAV Asics, Skyline and Extec, all previously qualified, all won their respective pools. Austin used an ace from Emily Danks to sweep Invasion and an ace from Becky Swann to sweep TAV Molten in Pool 1. TAV easily swept past SCVC and defeated OP2 for the fourth time this season despite the heroics of OH Tyler Henderson. Skyline won four close games with AVA of Texas and Dallas Juniors. And Extec earned a trip to the Hard Rock Café with an overtime win over both Impact and sweep of Golden West. Jen Myer played well for Extec…… The fourth team to reach Silver was Golden West in Pool 4. The Southern Californians needed three sets to upend hard-luck Impact, which also lost in three to Extec. Golden West used the outside hitting tandem of Moeller and Fontanilla to great effect in taking Game 1 from Impact, 25-23. But the Nashville club used its size in the middle, courtesy of Sam Serley and Madelyn Hutson, to claim the second game, 25-18. With much at stake, as both of these teams still were without bids, Game 3 was tense and very exciting. An Alison Woods feed to OH Kaycee Green gave Impact an 8-6 lead at the switch, but GW scored two straight, one from Palmquist, to knot the game. After two Buckley kills offset strong work on the outside from Smith and Green, another Palmquist kill had Golden West in the driver's seat for Silver, leading 13-11. But Impact roared back, tying the game on a Smith/Hutson block. Palmquist gave GW match point, killing a terrific set from Younglove, but Smith powered an attack through the block to tie things once more. Impact had a swing to take the lead on the next point, but Palmquist was there with a big block to give GW its second match point. This one it cashed in quickly thanks to Moeller's two-handed kill of an overpass on serve-receive……. Golden West coach Craig Pazanti and SCVC coach Cameron Green dined together at Benihana on Saturday night. Rivals in the SCVA Power League, they knew that if they met on Sunday, it would be a "friendly," a match for fifth, each with a bid in hand. Golden West had to get by TAV Molten to make it happen. SCVC had to contend with AVA of Texas. Pazanti had chicken and scallops. Green went with the steak and shrimp. Both proved to be perfect recipes for success. When Pazanti awakened Sunday morning, having toasted all evening to "one more win," he didn't know his team would have to do it without one of his starting middles. But Buckley had been in the hospital Saturday night with an ear infection and, though she made it to Reliant on Sunday, her view of the match wasn't from the court, but from across several chairs, which she lay on as stuff oozed from her ear. Pazanti's team, however, is nothing if not deep. He started the year with a robust roster of 14 and, even though two left the team before Lone Star over playing time issues, he still had 11 to manipulate in the Silver semifinal versus Molten. An ace from Tiffany Firebaugh and block from Downs get Molten off confidently in Game 1, but Golden West soon started to take control, as it simply served better. A Palmquist ace made it 6-3 GW and Molten never threatened, dropping the set, 25-10. Game 2 was better, as multiple kills from Bettinger helped Molten take a 14-13 lead midway through. But a 7-3 run, culminating in a Palmquist kill, put Golden West a mere two points from a bid, up 23-19. TAV Molten closed to within 24-22 on nice plays from Woolsey, Bettinger and Downs, but would get no closer. Molten thought it had an easy point to get within 24-233 when GW's overpassed on serve-receive, but a heads up play by Younglove, who was there for the winning block, secured the bid and left Molten hoping to try again in Reno, provided it can get into the Open draw. "Coming here at full strength, I think we had a shot to do it," said Pazanti. "The kids worked hard. We won matches we needed to win but we lost matches to some good teams." 15-Asics The 15-Asics team has seen its share of adversity this year as their initial team captain Lara Gutierrez went down with an ACL tear on the very first day of competition and once starting setter Megan Casale had to leave for personal reasons. So as the 15-Asics trudged on starting in an unfamiliar Division III in the SCVA. They knew they needed to do some work to get to the "big dog" division and so set their off on a journey of pushing themselves harder than they had before. Part of the journey included extra workouts at CATZ (a GW training partner) which Dana Nichols father, Brian Nichols, setup to enhance their training. Also, adding extra days for practice and hours and hours of private lessons have brought this team to Division I and back where 15-Asics belongs. General Notes: If you would like to see more "ink" about your particular team give your coach a call and let them know. More soon! Back to GW Main |
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