Matchbox Volleyball Club, based out of Aberdeen, South Dakota, is one of the largest club volleyball organizations in South Dakota and provides athletes ages 8-18 with a developmental and competitive volleyball experience. The club was founded in the fall of 2017 and hosted its first club season with 16 teams (divisions 10-18) in the spring of 2018. Since its inception, Matchbox Volleyball has grown to host 36 club teams offering volleyball opportunities to young girls of all ages and abilities in our local community.
Due to the rapid increase in growth of the club and interest in the sport of volleyball in the area, Matchbox built its own private athletic facility that opened in the spring of 2019. This new facility allows Matchbox to serve thousands of additional athletes through the expansion of camps, private lessons, and the 22 small club tournaments hosted each season. Currently, the club offers volleyball-related training opportunities primarily for girls ages 3-18, with the majority of the participating athletes being high school level.
Due to the geographical rural location in northern South Dakota, the makeup and culture of Matchbox is very different from the traditional club experience. Firstly, the population in the area is very dispersed so the majority of the athletes attend small schools (average graduating class size: 30) spread over northern South Dakota and southern North Dakota. With little-to-no metropolitan cities, opportunities for athletes, especially female athletes, are very limited. Thus, the average drive time for the athletes is 30 miles (one way) with some athletes driving over two hours (one way) for each practice. This travel constraint not only brings late practice nights for athletes, but also makes attending large, national qualifying tournaments very difficult with either a long commute and/or limited access to airlines. Thus, the practice and tournament schedules are extremely intentional.
In addition to the rural makeup, the small school athletic programs depend on athletes to participate in multiple sports in order to field teams in every sport. “At Matchbox we have embraced the dual-sport athlete and encourage our club athletes to participate in whatever school activities they also enjoy. We try to work the club schedule around school activities and love to support our athletes in all their activities and accomplishments on and off the Matchbox court,” said Club Director Alexz Smith.
The mission at Matchbox is to…
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