-
June 2011: Fifth and final Senior Signs:
Tiva Akau, the last remaining unsigned
senior from the 18 Elite Black team has
accepted and offer to play at
Bellevue College.
She will join Marysville-Pilchuck
teammate Sam Minnig on NW Juniors Assistant
Director - Kim Culliton's squad. Akau
is the fifth and final member to sign of the
group of five players that have been
together four seasons under the guidance of
club Director Tony Miranda. She joins a
solid Bellevue team that will compete in the
North Division of the NWAACC. "I'm
extremely proud of my five seniors, and
happy we were able to find good fit for Tiva,"
says Miranda "I look forward to seeing these
players play the next few years. I
have become close with these players and
their families, and it makes me happy that
they will be playing college volleyball in
the Northwest where I can watch them play."
-
May, 2011: Fourth Senior Signs:
Despite an early season injury and ACL
reconstructive surgery, Samantha Minnig has
earned a volleyball scholarship and becomes
the fourth member of the 18 Elite Black team
to secure their future on the court.
Minnig has signed to play at
Bellevue College,
for assistant club director Kim Culliton.
No doubt Culliton's familiarity with the
potential that the 6' 2" Minnig brings
contributed to her belief that the
Marysville-Pilchuck middle would be a good
addition to the Bellevue college team.
Minnig has been hard at work re-habbing her
knee and is on track to contribute to the
Bulldogs in the fall. Congratulations
Sam.
-
April, 2011: Third Senior Signs: A third 18 Elite
Black team member, Haley Bedell has accepted
an offer to attend and play volleyball in
college. She accepted an offer from
Pacific University
in Forest Grove, Oregon. Bedell joins
Taylor Brooks and Olivia VanDlac as seniors
that have played for club director Tony
Miranda for four seasons and have now earned
a college playing opportunity. All
three have been teammates on the 15 Heat, 16
Eclipse, 17 Elite and 18 Elite teams -- all
coached by Miranda. The club is proud
of our seniors and wishes them all the best
of luck as they move on to play at the next
level.
-
February, 2011: Seniors Sign Letters of Intent: So
far two members of the 18 Elite Black team
(Taylor Brooks & Olivia VanDlac) have
secured their college destinations for the
2012 season. Both have played together
as members of NW Juniors VBC since they
played for the 14 Cyclone team 5 seasons
ago). Setter, Taylor Brooks was the
first to sign -- having accepted an offer
from
Tacoma Community College, one of the
top programs in the NWAACC. Outside
Hitter, Olivia VanDlac signed with
Northwest
University of Kirkland -- a great NAIA
program that competes in the Cascade
Conference. We are proud of both of
them and are happy that their hard work has
paid off in the form of college
scholarships. Since both are local, we
look forward to watching them play for the
next few years. Congratulations to
both seniors!
-
Emerald City Classic: Four of our
Five NW Juniors Elite Teams were accepted
into the Emerald City Classic Tournament on
Memorial Day Weekend at the UW. The
team with the best success within their
division was the 16 Elite Black team, which
lost in the Final of the 16 Club Gold
Division, and placed MB Courtney Smith onto
the All-tournament team. The 16 Elite
Gold team was also in the 16 Club and
finished 33rd overall. The 18 Elite
Black team competed in the 18 Open Division
and lost in the Bronze Division final to KJ
18's -- finishing 18th overall; the 14 Elite
Gold team had a solid showing, playing their
way into the 14 Club's Silver Division, and
finishing 11th overall.
-
NW Juniors Memorial Weekend Tournament:
Our 11 remaining teams participated in
the club-hosted Memorial Weekend Tournament
held in various sites on the Eastside and
North end. Notable finishes include 15 Elite
Gold, champions of the U15D2 Gold Division;
13 Thunder, Champions of the U13 Silver
Division; and 13 Heat third place in the 13
Gold Division.
-
Willamette Classic: Our Five NW
Juniors Elite Teams travelled to Corvallis,
Or for the weekend to play in their last
travel tournament of the season. Each
team met with varied success as they
navigated through the quirky format of the
Classic held over Mother's Day Weekend.
Results from the entire tournament are
posted
here.
-
NW Juniors 18 Elite Black named April
Team of the Month: With top finishes in
all three tournaments they played in April,
the 18 Elite team has earned team of the
month honors. A month that started
with a 5th place in Flight 2 of the U18
Power League and continued with a top finish
at the Reno Qualifier was capped by a 5th
place finish in the 18 Regional championship
tournament. Congratulations 18 Elite.
-
All 17 teams in the club competed in the
Puget Sound Region Championship Tournament:
The weekend was filled with competition
throughout the region as every NW Juniors
team played in the regional championships.
Many teams continued their steady climbs up
the rankings and several teams had breakout
weekends. As we receive notes from the
coaches on their results we will post them.
FINAL RESULTS
-
18 Elite Black continued their late
season run competing with the best teams
in the Northwest with a 5th place finish
in the U18 Bid tournament. After
great improvement in Spokane, and a run
at the Gold in Reno, they followed it up
with some great play at Regionals.
With narrow losses to Lake Tapps and KJ
18's they were within an eyelash of
earning a bid to the National
Championships in Atlanta. Their
best match came Sunday morning against
KJ 18 Baden, narrowly losing 18-20 in
set 3. KJ would go on and play
Lake Tapps for an American Bid. 18
Elite defeated Puget Sound 18 National
2-0 to earn 5th Place. Top Five
finishers: 1) WVBA, 2) ITVC, 3)
Lake Tapps, 4) KJ, 5) NW Juniors
18 Elite
-
12 Eclipse established itself as a top
12's team in the Northwest. After
a championship in Yakima and a great 2nd
place finish at the last Power League
tournament, 12 Eclipse entered Regionals
as the #4 overall seed. They
narrowly missed a chance to play Puget
Sound in the Gold Final, and instead
finished 3rd overall after an easy
victory over Synergy 12's in the 3/4
match. They complete their season
as the #3 team in the Puget Sound
region. Nice job by the 12's as we
look forward to a continued run at the
top of the region for this group of
young ladies. Top Five: 1) PSVBA
12 National, 2) Capital Ice; 3) NW
Juniors 12 Eclipse, 4) Synergy
Purple , 5) SIVBC 12 Monsoon.
-
14 Storm Won the 14 D3 Bronze Division
-
Elite teams travel to qualifiers with
varied success: Three teams traveled to
Reno and one to Anaheim for National
Qualifiers with a chance to qualify for
nationals and seeking inter-regional
competition.
-
The
18 Elite Black team, in Reno for
the Far Westerns Qualifier, stayed in the
hunt for a bid all the way until the morning
of the last day. Seeded a very low 82 out of
96 teams going into the tournament, they
went into Friday afternoon's first day of
competition with a chip on their shoulders
defeating the #9 seed Sport City and #63
Sequoia Crush, but losing to #34 Utah Jrs
and finishing second in pool -- moving up to
seed #34 in the process. Day two found
them opening up against a very solid San
Gabriel RoShamBo team and losing to the team
that would eventually finish 3rd overall;
they bounced back nicely by defeating #16
San Francisco 18 RoShamBo in a three-set
thriller and #39 Club Wahine of Seattle
fairly easily -- their 2-1 record earned
them a chance at the Gold Pools bright and
early Sunday morning. Sunday brought
great play, but different results as they
struggled with the early morning match
against City Beach, eventually losing 25-27,
22-25. With that loss their chances
for a bid disappeared and they did not play
well their last two matches Sunday. A
great weekend earned them a 21st place
finish in the 18 Club division and they were
the highest finishing Puget Sound Region
team in the field. Great and
consistent performances were turned in by
Kiah Jones and Taylor Brooks; and Danielle
Lieder was named tournament MVP.
-
The
16 Elite Black team also traveled
to Reno and finished the weekend with a 7-3
record. The had a tough first day,
losing a couple close matches and finishing
1-2 in pool and in third place. This
unfortunately meant that they would be out
of the hunt for a bid and in the bottom half
of the field and destined to finish no
higher than 89th (out of 177 teams).
They then went on a 6-match winning streak
-- going 4-0 on Saturday in pool play,
winning their 5-team pool, and going 2-0 in
bracket play Sunday before losing in the
Flight 3A final. Their great weekend
netted them 90th place in the 16 Club.
-
The 16 Elite Gold (Reno) and 15
Elite Gold (Anaheim) teams, though in
different cities had similarly disappointing
weekends. The 16 Elite Gold Team
finished in 171st while the 15 Elite Gold
team finished 108th. Both teams had a
difficult time the first two days of the
tournament but finished strong in the last
day. 16 Elite played extremely well,
but just missed out on winning some close
matches -- going 1-2 on Friday, and 0-3
Saturday (losing all three matches in 3
sets); then going 2-0 on Sunday before
having to forfeit the final in order to make
their flight. 15 Elite Gold also went
1-2 the first day followed by a rough 0-3
second day, and a 2-1 third day after a loss
in the final of their bracket. No
worries missing their plane Sunday as they
stayed an extra day for a day of team fun at
Disneyland & California Adventure!
-
3/13/11: 10 Northwest Juniors teams
travelled to the Team Yakima Jamboree and
had varying amounts of success. We
would like to highlight their successes
here. All final
results are posted to
the tournament
website.
Unfortunately, most of our teams were
handcuffed by a very unusual format that
did not allow them to advance into the top
divisions of the tournament. Regardless of
how many matches they won, some of our teams
could not finish very high. Despite these
restrictions, many of our teams had very
successful weekends. At the end of the
first day, as coaches reported in most of
our teams finished first of second in their
pools. Great weekend teams.
Highlights:
-
The
12 Eclipse team (pictured
at right with their prizes) WON the U12 tournament.
They entered as the #4 seed and went
undefeated all weekend. Their playoff
adventure was highlighted by back-to-back
3rd set victories over Cowlitz Black (#1
seed) and the host team Team Yakima Gold (#2
seed) in the final.
-
12 Storm team also had a great tournament
on the court. They won their first
round pool in Division 2 and were placed
into the Division 1 tournament for the
remainder. They did not win in
Division 1 but reports are that they played
phenomenally.
-
15 Heat did not lose a match until the
playoff round on Sunday afternoon.
They lost in the semi-finals.
-
13 Heat had a great weekend losing in the
finals of their division.
-
18 Elite Black played in the Power Division
and took second place in their first round
of pool -- and moved up to Division 1.
After a tough second round of pool -- they
finished 3rd -- they ended up losing in the
first round of playoffs and finished tied
for 5th place overall on the U18's Division
(out of 24 teams).
-
15 Tornado and 15 Thunder had some great
successes and earned some great victories.
Both teams have struggled this season, but
their Yakima weekend brought victories and
smiles to the coaches and the players.
-
14 Cyclone and the 13 Thunder &
13 Tornado
teams all played well.
-
-
13
Heat poses for their picture with their
prizes after winning the January 30th Sports
For Youth U13's Tournament at Highline
Community College.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1/18/11: 18 Elite Gold a finalist in the MLK
Tournament. Our 18 Elite team had a
good weekend, losing in the final to the
Seaside Surf team of Canada. They
played some very good volleyball over the
weekend, but were not able to overcome the
taller Canadian team in the second time they
played. They finished the weekend 6-3
overall with two of their losses coming to
the eventual champion. In other
weekend news, the 16 Elite Black team made
it onto the Gold Division of the MLK
tournament and finished tied for 3rd
overall, 14 Elite Gold won the Bronze
Division over a spunky 13 Heat team; and the
12 Eclipse team won the Silver Bracket at
the UPVBC U12's Tournament.
-
1/10/11: After the first round of Power
League, our Elite teams competed well and
met with varied success. Our 18 Elite
team was the highest finisher of all of our
elite teams, finishing in 9th place overall
in the U18 division. Our 16 Elite
Black team played themselves into Flight 4
and finished 26th overall, while our 16
Elite Gold team finished 40th overall (out
of 96 total teams). Our 15 Elite Gold
team had the biggest jump of all the teams,
starting as the #67 overall seed and
finishing a respectable 51st; of the 42 U15
teams in the field, they are the 17th
overall. The 14 Elite Gold team
finished in the top half of the bracket, in
Flight 4 as the 31st overall seed (out of
69).
-
January 8 & 9 is Power League Weekend with 9
of our teams competing in the region's
seeding tournament. Teams are
competing throughout the region in a one-day
multi-match format that guarantees a long
day of play. Results of the first
installment of Power League will determine
which division the teams will play in on the
weekend of January 22-23. All Power League
results and event information is managed by
the region. For up to date information
as the league progresses, bookmark the
Region's Power League
Homepage
-
NW Jrs. and
Bellevue College alumni, Patti Reeves, has
set
a new record for the 2010 season at George
Fox University of 5.88 digs/game and
finished the year with 500 digs in 26
matches, second in a season only to Sharon
Barnett's 631 in 1998, when the Bruins
played 39 matches and went to the NAIA
National Tournament. Her average of 5.88
digs tops the previous mark of 5.43 by Linzi
Stolsig in 2005. Way to go Patti.
-
Sara Risser, NW Juniors 13 Heat
assistant coach, has helped Seattle Pacific
University to a 6-0 record to start the
season.
READ MORE
-
Congratulations to
a couple of our young coaches in securing
High School Coaching jobs. Emily
Price has taken the head JV position
at her alma mater, Juanita High School.
She is a 2010 graduate of Edmonds CC and
2007 Graduate of Juanita HS. Amber Johnson
has taken the head JV
position at Everett High School. She
is a 2008 graduate of Mt. Vernon HS and most
recently played at Seattle Pacific
University.
-
Congratulations to
Angela D'Amelio (15
Thunder/Edmonds CC/Juanita HS) in being
hired on as an Assistant Coach at Bellevue
College.
-
We say goodbye,
congratulations, and good luck to Libby Hurdelbrink (16 Eclipse) who
was
accepted into Cal State Northridge's Special
Ed Masters Program.
-
Congratulations and good luck to
Patti
Reeves (15 Thunder) who is moving on
to play volleyball at
George Fox University in Newberg, OR
