OJVA 16 - White Tournament #2

Another home tournament; another exhibition of deceptive excellence.

The wins and losses column would display that this day wasn't a happy one; I believe that couldn't be further from the truth. With other teams scouting and strategising, minimising our teams options with tactical serving given through codes and cryptic messages. Our girls were lead to play the game naturally and develop through trial and error in game sense situations, and gave many teams a startling scare.

We learnt what pressure felt like in close games; learnt how to react and question what we were doing on court; learnt what style of coaching isn't appreciated and what is; learnt that everyone on the team needs to do their individual job to benefit the team as a whole.

Top plays from Jodie and Olivia through the middle on defence structured good backcourt play from Daria and Rebecca thus keeping our chins above water and competing with bigger higher ranked teams.

Also commendations to tidy outside play putting away the team we should have on Saturday picking up seeding positions that are well deserved.

The team from here moving forward needs to look at how to generate points on offence after good solid defensive play making. Also, looking to ride waves of momentum.

All is looking well so far...

Until next time

Kiwi out


Stephen Stone
OJVA 16 - Baby Blue

18's Qualifier

OJVA 18's Gold Qualifier

With sickies (colds and Flu) and lots of ouches (injuries) we went to Salem to play in the Qualifier.  Only suiting up 8 players was the smallest group we have ever played with and all players were needed!!!!!!  We started off with NCVBA and won in 2 fairly easily 25-9 and 25 12…. Then we played Oregon NW Juniors-AVBC 17-1 … xyz!  If they had anymore letters they could play Wheel of fortune but, we played well and Won 25-16 and 25-12.  Then we played the #2 seed in the pool which was NW Reign….  Had a bit of a trap match as we won easily in the first game 25-12, then Lost 25-17 and then played with some emotion and energy in the 15-7 3rd set win.  This let us win the pool and be exactly where we wanted to be in the playoffs for the Platinum division.  So 10 minutes after the 3 set win, we were back on the court against the Oregon NW-AVBA 18-1…aeiou.  The game was never in question as we won easily 25-19 and 25-10. Making it to the finals was where we wanted to be and winning is what we were playing for.  We ended up Playing Webfoot 18-1 in the match for the Platinum.  It was a great match!!!!!!  In the first set we were down 17-22 and after a couple of kills, a couple of great serves and some timely blocks we came away with a 26-24 victory.  Then in Set 2, we were in control  at 16-13, then a couple of hitting errors, big swings by Webfoot and missed serves we found ourselves down 16-19 and 19-22.  Only then did we play some Defense, Block some balls, take some very aggressive hits (that we practice all of the time).  With 2 great blocks , One by Kendall on a over pass that was a for sure game point …. out of no where came Kendall flying thru and completely roofed the 6'4 middle. Then a put away by Taylor on a look angle hit line and the big block of the day by Elise for the Match and a Invitation to the Platinum (Top 4 in Washington and Oregon).  

For the 18's this is our 7th straight Platinum tourney. The level of play there is always great and there are no bad or trap games as everyone can kick your game at any time!!!!  Nice job by ALL…Players and Coaches!!!!!

Steve Suttich

The Courts in Beaverton

The Eastmoreland Courts

www.TheCourtsinBeaverton.com

OJVA

https://www.facebook.com/EastmorelandCourts

Ceva Qualifier- Mt Hood CC- 16's Red

Our first qualifying tournament and overall, it went well.  This time Ali, assistant coach, was there adding insight and energy to the team, which was great.  I've seen a lot of improvement in attitudes and play, but Ali and I both know, their is unbelievable potential that hasn't been tapped in a lot of areas. Starting last in our pool(58) we played a little slow and by the end of the day we are close to where we started.  We told the ladies, they worked hard and had a nice day.  The effort and push to the end was great, but we're still beating ourselves too much, with mistakes.  Between the missed serves, hits and balls dropping, there was enough points to win at least 1 game!  Keep up the positive energy ladies, WANT to get better and work harder.!

18's MLK Tourney at Univ of Oregon

The MLK tourney was the coming out party for the 18's as this was the first competition of the year for the team.   We started the tourney seeded #7 which is a high seed for this new team. But in the first day we did live up to the seed by finishing 3-0 for the day.   We started off playing Reach 18-1 from the Tacoma area and won in 2 25-16 and 25-14. All players contributed and played well. Our second match was against Boise Stealth and the results were even better as the scores were 25-16 and 25-6. In our 3rd match and our toughest challenge we played a solid Kent Juniors 17's. This team was one of the top 16's team last year. After a 23-25 loss we gathered up and played volleyball and returned with a 25-16 and 15-7 win. 

Day 2 started off with a good match right away at 8am. A very scrappy Excell team seemed like they dug everything and every bounce fell their way. But OJVA came thru with a 25-23 and 25-23  win. In our 10am match we played DSK and had a easier win with everyone playing well 25-19 and 25 21. In our last match of the day we played the always competitive Columbia Juniors from the Tri-Cities area in Washington.  They had beaten the other teams in the pool very easily and the match could go either way.  The 18's Served and Passed very well and we clearly hit on all cylinders as we stepped up to the challenge and won 25-21 and 25-19. This qualified us for the Gold division as one of the top 10 teams in the 96 team event.  

Day 3 we played another team from Boise that came in to the tourney very badly seeded as a #4 (#31Overall) in their first day pool. They then proceeded to beat every team for the next 2 days and came into the gold division as the #10 team.  Both teams played very well and both teams showed their strengths. The Boise team has played together for 3 years and it clearly showed in their team play and very disciplined defense and transisition. We lost the first set 28-26 and in another dog fight we came up short 26-24 in the second.  Boise went on to win the next 2 matches and only lost to eventual champs KJ 18's.

Overall I was very happy with all of the play and all of the different lineups that we used going into the Qualifier this weekend.

Steve Suttich

The Courts in Beaverton

The Eastmoreland Courts

www.TheCourtsinBeaverton.com

OJVA

https://www.facebook.com/EastmorelandCourts

OJVA 18's Ready for MLK Tourney

First Tourney of the year always is exciting as we will find out what we need to work on.

Play well!!!!!

Steve

12 White PL Qualifier Highlight

Well, 12 White did AWESOME!  We placed 3rd in our pool.  Lost to MAC White 23-25 & 14-25, won v. NCVBC Purple 25-16 & 25-12, and then made an amazing comeback v. NCVBC Grey (who was undefeated at the time) to win 16-25, 25-19 & 15-??.  It was so intense that I forgot to write down the score!!!!  For the 2nd set, it was 4th graders all the way!  Only one of the 6th graders was on the court.  The team had 4 pass/set/hits in the match...this was the most they had in a match all day. In the other matches they only had 1 in each (this was my goal for the day- at least 1 pass/set/hit per match).  In the last set I got everyone on the court.  They all contributed to a great WIN.  The games were all about serving.  We had a lot of aces throughout the day.  We then had a bye and had to wait for our crossover match.  It was rough.  Mt. Hood had some really tough servers and we didn't see anything like it all day, so the team had a hard time passing.  

We have some true leaders starting to emerge...those who were talking on the court (all day), going after every ball and directing others to their positions. I can't wait to see what they do in the next month!

-Coach Caryn 

14 Black Qualifier #2 Highlight

14 Black had a tough pool this second qualifier and competed against all teams (they played every match to three games!) but only beat one team in pool play giving them the 3rd seed. In our crossover match, we lost to a team we beat last weekend in pool play which was a bummer. Still, I was proud of the girls continuing to play every game to the last point and saw many awesome improvements this weekend! We transitioned into setting from the back row too and by the end of the day, the girls had it down!

We'll continue to work on rotations and putting the ball away during long rallies!

-Carly Bittner

14 Yellow PL Qualifier #2 Highlight

We all successfully hydro-planed to Salem! And once we woke up halfway through our first set, we were unstoppable!  Even though the competition was not at the level we are used to playing, we worked hard on playing "our" game and not lowering our skill level to those teams we played. Our whole team is improving with every touch of the ball! Confidence levels keep rising!  I have Nick named Hazuki 'Ace' for her crazy number of aces, Charlotte was complemented by an opposing coach for her beautiful hands when she sets, and Tia discovered her 'game face'!! I'm so proud of how they all played! We won every match in two sets. And took the cross over round quickly playing the best we played all day! 

14 Red PL Qualifiers #1 & 2 Highlight MOVIN' ON UP!!!

Day one of the new qualifier was a great opportunity for 14 Red to be tested and get in the tourney groove.  We took 2nd in our pool after a tough 3 set loss to Tillamook 14-1 and crossed over to a very good and under-seeded DSK team.  Those girls were big and took some big swings but our girls hung tough and played them very tight.  Although we didn't win the match we bounced back and won the second match.  The first day dropped us from 68 to 77, but the girls got game tough and showed how well they can really play.  What we lost in seeding, we gained in physical and mental growth.

On day 2 we came in fired up and ready to play! Tillamook, who took our 68 seed, was in our pool for the 2nd time in a row.  With the 52 seed up for grabs in our pool, the girls fought hard, avenged the loss to Tillamook with a nice win, and also took down Southside and Webfoot to win our pool.  Im not sure if they just wanted to go home early(we were in Albany for the 2nd weekend in a row), but 14 Red played a focused and disciplined match against a good Pirates team to win our crossover and head back to Portland with the highest seed in both pools at 52!!!  The team played aggressive and together and really earned their new seed! Way to go ladies!!!

GO RED!

Coach Kev and Coach Mattea

16 White 1/11/14 Club Tourney Highlight

For a group of girls that had been compiled only a few days prior to their first tournament, areas of the game that needed the greatest attention to, communication skills for example, were far better than expected. A big positive for the beginning of the year looking forward.

The girls battled their way through pool stages picking up sets off of good teams to get themselves into the silver divisional playoff bracket (a great place to be).

Nate developed her dumping skills to generate points at opportune situations; hussle plays in the back court by Daria and Rebecca helped our team immensely; Megan, Emma, and Chloe stepped up, tidying play well. Considering, when we heard the morning of, one of our usual starting players was no longer in the team.

Everyone should take away positives from these games, and also learning experiences that last the year.

Being my first year coaching girls, and having gameplay differing from adolescent males, I look forward to developing as much throughout the year as these girls.

Till next time

Kiwi Out


Stephen Stone
OJVA 16 - White