This is “Dots,” VolleyballMag’s weekly look at 10 things in club volleyball, past or present, that interest me and hopefully will interest you. Look for Dots every Tuesday through Junior Nationals this summer:
• In all the mania surrounding the Triple Crown NIT over President’s Day Weekend, it is easy to forget that several other well-represented tournaments took place over the same weekend.
When I first started covering club some 22 years ago, more than a decade before Triple Crown began its quest to dominate the space on President’s Day by marshaling the nation’s best club teams; the Las Vegas Classic, Sports Performance President’s Day Tournament, President’s Cup in Dayton and Asics President’s Day Classic in Omaha were the big events that signaled the unofficial start to the club volleyball season.
In the ensuing years, the Capitol Hill Classic in D.C. and St. Louis President’s Day Tournament came into the space, alongside other, more local, events such as one run by the Northern California Volleyball Association and Top Courts’ President’s Day Invitational in Orlando.
These days, the hierarchy of events seems to be Triple Crown, St. Louis, Capitol Hill, Las Vegas and Omaha, in that order. That’s a huge fall for Las Vegas, which used to be THE premier event for 17s and 18s before Triple Crown came along.
• In the run up to Triple Crown, I noted that all but two of the nation’s elite clubs were playing in Kansas City. Metro VB of Washington D.C. and Indy’s Circle City were the two clubs not at Triple Crown. Metro is the anchor club at Capitol Hill and playing there. Circle is host of the St. Louis event and competed there.
• How did those clubs fare at their events? Really, really well, in one instance, and not so great in the other.
Here’s what you need to know about how Metro did. The D.C. club won 18 Open, 17 Open, 16 Open and 15 Open (Those are the age groups we cover. Metro also won 14 Open and finished second in 13 Open) and compiled a cumulative record of 37-1 over those divisions.
Metro 18 Travel did not drop a set behind MVP Mimi Mambu and two other standouts, Alexis Ewing, who was named best attacker; and Malinh Godschall, the best digger.
Metro 17 Travel dropped just one set. Isabelle Bardin, a 6-3 setter, was outstanding. She averaged nearly eight assists per set and was the team block leader. Outsides Leni…
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