This is “Dots,” VolleyballMag.com’s weekly look at 10 things in high school volleyball, past or present, that interest me and hopefully will interest you. Look for Dots every Tuesday until the last high school state championship in November:
• Can you feel the excitement? We are just three days away from the start of the 27th Durango Fall Classic in Las Vegas. Fielding 64 teams from 12 states, nine of which are ranked among the top 25 teams in the nation, there is no doubt that “Durango” is the top high school tournament in the nation.
Teams that want to win a national championship come here to prove they are the best of the best. If you can’t win Durango, don’t even bother trying to claim national supremacy!
• Who will win Durango?
Top-seeded Cathedral Catholic of San Diego (17-0) is the clear favorite. The Dons, however, are coming off successive tournament titles in Honolulu and Huntington Beach. Will a third week of travel prove too much?
Second-seeded Fayetteville (11-0) is the next best choice, but the Bulldogs also are road warriors. Last weekend, Fayetteville was in Tulsa, more than two hours from home, where it won the Bishop Kelley Tournament.
Funny side note about Fayetteville: the Bulldogs first traveled to Tulsa on Aug. 23 to face BK in a border war clash. Fayetteville won the first set and led 25-24 in the second when a fire alarm went off and did not stop. The match was suspended at the point, then resumed on Saturday after the tournament concluded. Fayetteville won the next point and the third set, 25-23, to complete the sweep some six hours after it defeated Bishop Kelley in four sets in the tournament semifinals!
• All told, there are eight teams in the field coming to Vegas that currently are unbeaten. Only four are No. 1 seeds. The other two unbeaten No. 1s, Timpview and Mountain View of Idaho, square off tonight!
The four unbeaten No. 2 seeds are Alemany of California (8-0), Queen Creek of Arizona (5-0), Madison of Idaho (5-0) and Lakeside of Washington. None is a legitimate threat to win Durango, but if I had to pick one to win a Friday pool it would be Madison. Alemany has to tangle with Mitty and that might be too big an ask. Queen Creek is in Redondo’s pool and Redondo, coming off yesterday’s five-set win over 2021 national champion Marymount, is hot. Lakeside is a bit of an unknown and might have trouble getting by 3-seed Clovis West, let alone Timpview.
Speaking of unknowns,…
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