Congratulations to the 18 National Red Wolfpack 2.0, as they prowled into the NEQ qualifier and walked away as the Bronze division champions. The team finished the tournament with a record of 4-4 but a mere 4 points separated them from advancing to the Silver Division of the 18 National playoffs and another close loss could have advanced them to the Gold Division.

The team started the 1^st day playing against FVBC 18-1 and beating them by the scores of 25-20, 25-12. The team really started clicking with their play calling in the second set and cruised to a victory. The second match of the day was against Synergy 18-2 Navy; a team that had defeated them early in the season at Lancaster in the playoffs. The “Wolfpack” garnered a bit of payback with a hard fought, extremely close two set victory, 27-25, 25-23. This put the team at 2-0 for the day with one match to play. The team was guaranteed a spot in the top half of the draw.

The last match of the day had two 2-0 teams facing each other, AVVC at 2-0 and Sky High Red, the # 12 seed in the tournament. Sky High drew first blood with a tough 25-22 win in the first set. AVVC drew even with a  sound thrashing of Sky High by the score of 25-16. The 3^rd set was a back and forth volley of quick attacks and slides as well as screaming hits from the pins. Unfortunately, Sky High took the lead at the changeover and held form for the remainder of the match to win in 3 at 15-8. Still, this put the “Wolfpack” into the upper half of the 58 teams in the tournament with some very good teams on the forefront. Unfortunately, Coach Stevens did not take stats the 1^st day (a little jab at myself here) so all stats presented are based on the the 2^nd and 3^rd day of play.

The second day of volleyball saw the team get hammered by an amazing little team from Virginia. Not small in reputation but small in stature as the best player on the court was #9 from Coastal 18 Blue. She hammered the ball off the block repeatedly for points, en route to a comfortable victory by the scores of 25-15, 25-10. Perhaps a little bit fatigued from playing the evening before, the team regrouped and played, in this coach’s estimation, some of the their best volleyball all year. The second match of the day for the team was a tough loss in two to a Baltimore team; Under Armour 18 E, the 11^th ranked team in the tournament.  AVVC had more than a few chances at winning both games but in the end fell to the local team by the scores of 27-25, 27-25. Despite the loss, I felt that our girls showed amazing heart and resiliency in playing this highly ranked team and given a few breaks, would have beaten them. With no rest for the weary, the team had to immediately play another team ranked ahead of them, SMASH 18’s from New England (Mass.) had already beaten Under Armour earlier in the pool and a victory for the Wolfpack would have guaranteed them a spot in the Silver Division. Unfortunately, it was not to be as SMASH beat the Wolfpack by the scores of 25-22, 25-18. Still, the team played some fantastic volleyball and despite the 0-3 record on the day, I couldn’t have been more proud of the way they fought the last two matches against 2 very good teams. Truly some of our best volleyball this year. The team was headed to the Bronze Division of the 18 National playoffs and the team was ready to make some noise.

The playoffs brought the girls to the venue early to work the 1^st match of the day. This early start almost proved costly as the girls sleepwalked through the 1^st game against NH Seacoast and lost 19-25. Chastened by their coaches, the girls fought back hard in the 2^nd set and won by the slim margin of 25-21. NH was undeterred though and fought back in the 3^rd game, down 0-3, they fought back to 2-3 before AVVC was able to side out. From that point on the scores were never more than 2 points difference except for when AVVC took a 12-8 lead. NH was able to sideout and score another point to make it 12-10 until a kill from Kristin Gelinitis made it 13-10. NH never gave up though and tied it at 13 and took a 13-14 lead before another kill by Kristin tied it at 14. A hitting error gave AVVC a 15-14 lead but Seacoast sided out and actually took a 15-16 lead with the serve. A Macy Schwartz kill tied the game at 16-16 and then Amber Evans subbed in for Macy and served the last two points for an 18-16 win.

The win put the Wolfpack into the Bronze A Championship game which would take place 2 hours later. This worried me as the team tends to play poorly after a long rest. Would my fears become reality? We would find out very shortly.

The Bronze A championship match was against a team that Coach Willie and I had faced on more than a few occasions in the distant past. When the two clubs that merged to create AVVC occurred in 2005, Willie and I were partnered up with myself in the position of Head Coach and Willie as my assistant. It’s a partnership that has created a friendship and a bond that will last well past our time together as coaches. But in the 1^st year of the merger, we coached a very talented team, which included Willie’s daughter, Heather. Back then we played in a tournament called the Bay State Invitational, and we had the honor of winning that tournament twice and we played Mass Pats 18 Blue on many occasions. This time we got to face them in the NEQ Bronze A Championship match. My fears of the team coming in flat after such a long layoff proved false as the team played a little tight but overall fairly well in a 25-27 loss. However I believed that the team could play even better and I challenged them to do so and made some slight tweaks to the lineup. The girls then began to play some inspired volleyball and everything I asked them to do they did. I even subbed Amber Evans out near the end of the 2^nd game to get a bigger blocker in Macy Schwartz and told her to “get me a block!” And that is exactly what she did at 23-15. She got a solo stuff on the OH that had been tooling our block all match to make it game point. Two points later, we won 25-16 and were tied up at 1-1 in the match.

The 3^rd game was close up to the changeover, where we led 8-6. Then it was ALL AVVC! We ended up winning 15-8 to win the Bronze A division and finished 25^th out of 58 teams.

The girls played some great volleyball all weekend with only one match being truly out of reach. Even with that match, we scored 242 points in the last two days and gave up 267. Take away the 25-15, 25-10 beatdown against Coastal 18 Blue and the team scored 217 points and gave up 217 points. That means that every match was competitive. Every front row player scored double figures in points for the last two days with Julie Monroy leading the way with 36.0 points. Kristin Gelinitis followed with 29 points, and Amber Evans and Cora Bidlack both scored 22 points. Lindsay Witt contributed 16 points and Macy Schwartz had 10 points. Vanessa Pulice had 8.0 points from her setter position. Amy Lee led the way with 23 digs and Lili Meng contributed 6 digs.

With two more tournaments on the horizon, it seems as if the team is peaking at the right time just as the GEVA Regional Championships are approaching.