2023 Tournament Recaps - Week 13

10 Red

The I AM 10 Red Team capped off their season with the Badger Region Tournament and finally at March Madness at the Sting Center. Playing in the Badger Region Tournament is always a fun experience. We started early on Saturday, playing first against Adversity 11s and then Sting 10s – we played good but I think the excitement of the tournament may have gotten the best of us, losing both of those matches. We served well but were hesitant to the ball and weren’t able to have a lot of three contact plays. We then went on later that day and played Madtown Select and won that match which put us in the Bronze bracket for day 2. The second day proved much better, beating Madtown Regional and then WI Juniors 11 blue. We really stepped it up day 2 and were in a groove for both matches. It was great to see the girls use all three touches and we had some great swings by Kennedy! We also had some great rocket serves from Reagan and Gaby that the other teams couldn’t touch! Also, our team got a lot of compliments from the officials on being a good working team! We ended the weekend First in Bronze!

Our last tournament was March Madness at the Sting Center. Sadly, 5 members of our team were on vaca but we were able to get Molly and Chloe from the 11 Red team to fill in! I was a little worried because the girls hadn’t all played together at all but it worked out really well. Chloe came in and set for us along with Gaby, our regular setter and Molly hit outside (and sometimes middle). It was so amazing to see the girls push themselves to play at a high level. There were so many three touch plays – it was awesome. Despite the blizzard, we started early and played Sting White and then Madtown Regional – we played really good but came up a little short on both. The girls did great though, playing in positions they hadn’t before and really doing whatever was needed for the team. Arabella had some great hits/kills, which was pretty incredible, and we were able to win our cross-over match against yet another Madtown team. We ended up in the Silver bracket and beat both Dash and RVA, which was a pretty big accomplishment!

The biggest takeaway from the day was how amazing it was to see the girls learn from Molly and Chloe – they were great mentors – and they taught us some new cheers, too.

This team made great strides! It's always great to think back to day 1 and how much they need to learn and then compare it to how the season ended. At the 10s level, we are always playing girls who are at least one year ahead. This can pose a challenge but also builds resilience. This team was no different, and I am very proud of how they carried themselves when facing this adversity. Despite the challenger, the girls came out confident and didn't give up until the match was over. I hope they are proud of what they accomplished as a team and as individual players. I know I am.

13 Black

This was the third and final week of the Badger Region Power League. 13 Black has been playing in the 14 Regional Division. The first week saw us finish 3rd in our pool of 8 to stay in the top half of the field. Day 1 of week 2 had us finish 1st in our pool of 4 to get a spot in the gold bracket with the top 8 teams. We stayed in gold after finishing 4th in the 8 team gold bracket on day 2.

Which brings us to week 3, Saturday. 7 team bracket, top 5 stay in gold, bottom 2 move down to silver. We started the day playing a team we lost to in week one. Once again we just couldn't get the job done and lost in 3. This put us in a 3 team pool to decide 5th - 7th place. We started out against MVP, who beat us in the Badger Region Championships. We played great against them, taking the match to 3, but again fell short. Right after, MVP was beating easily in 2, by Wi Premier 14 White. This gave us an opportunity to stay in Gold. If we beat Premier in 2 we end in the 3 way tie via match wins, but take first because of set wins. The challenge was laid out to the girls and they stepped up. It was a battle in both sets, and we had to come from behind to win, but we did it, 26-24, 25-23.

This takes us to the final day. 8 teams in the final gold bracket. Again, we played great against some really good teams, scoring in the 20s against all of them, but we couldn't get a win. In the end we went 1-5 on the weekend, 9-9 overall in the league, taking 8th place out of 24 teams. 1-5 doesn't sound great, but the level of volleyball we played this weekend went well beyond how we we played back in January. The girls did awesome, we're very proud of their accomplishments, getting to and finishing the league up in the gold bracket.

17 White

We had our final badger power league tournament April 1/2. On the first day we had 6 people and 7 people the second day. As a team we played in new positions and new lineups. We fought through different struggles being down players. Overall we had solid defense and put up a great fight against every team we played. The second day we came back strong and won our final two games of the day by hustling hard and playing great volleyball.

Player Shoutouts:

Kaylee had phenomenal passing and defense all weekend wrong. Jordan hustled all over the court to pick up balls and make sets happen. Liv consistently served hard and got aces for the team. Belle played middle and had some great blocks and hits over the block. Lilly took some awesome aggressive swings from both right side and the back row. McKinley had one of her best tournaments to date with her hitting and defense. Madisyn was back for us the second day and was an awesome presence in the middle.