From the JVA Office: How to Increase Matched Competition for Boys Volleyball

Boys volleyball is growing at the grassroots level, with more tournaments adding 12U divisions due to the demand for high level competition as the sport continues to catch the interest of youth at a fast rate. JVA Director of Events, Adam Beck, has been running THE Point Series since 2005 in the Chicago area and has witnessed the growth of boys volleyball firsthand. He shares his competition model and the benefits of the format so that clubs across the country can collaborate and create a series in their area.

THE Point Series started as the Palos Point Series in 2005. In that 1st year we had 48 teams in the 18 and under division. In 2019, right before the Covid-19 pandemic, THE Point Series had 94 teams in the 18 and under division, and over 200 teams total in 2020. THE Point Series was created to get the best teams competing against one another more often, and the middle to lower level teams could see matched, or equal, competition instead of getting “beat up” in normal tournament/pool play.

That 1st year of the Series we immediately saw the benefits of better competition as that summer St. Louis Hi-Performance, a participating club, won the national championship in the 18 and Under Division. At the 2015 NCAA Men’s National Championship between Loyola and Lewis, 11 of the 14 players on the floor for the two teams had cut their teeth at THE Point Series as high school athletes.

Point System

THE Point Series is an up/down league where teams accumulate points based on how they finish each day. The team that takes 1st in Bracket A gets 1 point, 2nd gets 2 points, etc. etc. The team at the end of the series that ends up with the least amount of points is crowned champion of the league.

There have been 2 formats that have been used over the years for THE Point Series.

1) 8 Team Bracket: Teams would be in an 8 team power bracket where each team would play 3 times. The winners of the 1st match would advance to their own 4 team bracket where the winners of that would play for the championship of their bracket and the losers would play for 3rd. The losers of the 1st match would have their own 4 team bracket where the winners would play for 5th place and the losers would play for 7th in their bracket. Here is a screenshot of how that looks.

It was hard to get everything into one screenshot, but you can see Match 10 for 7th/8th place and Match 12 for 3rd/4th place at the bottom of each bracket. So teams would finish 1-8 in their respective brackets…