2023 Tournament Recaps - Week 5

Week 5 had some amazing matches! Check out how our teams did this past weekend!

11 Red | 3-1 | 3rd Place

We played in the Fusion tournament at AP on Saturday.

The day started off against G-Forces 11-1's team. The 11 red team went into the tournament trying to serve more aggressively as a team. Using this new approach, I AM tallied 10 ACEs in game 1 and 8 ACEs in game 2 and cruised to an easy victory. ACE pins were achieved by both Elsa and Maddie during this match.

Match 2 was against the RVA 10-Navy team. Again continuing with aggressive serving, game 1 tallied 13 ACEs and Game 2 we had 12 ACEs. Although 9 missed serves in game 2 kept the score close, I AM again cruised to the easy victory with Maddie, Charlotte and Chloe receiving ACE pins.

Match 3 was against a very good defensive Heat Team. Our aggressive serving in Game one gave us the advantage and we won game 1 25-18. Game 2 saw the team fall behind and with only 2 aces and 7 missed serves, I AM lost game 2 25-19. Game 3 was a battle with I AM falling behind 13-11. Again I AM would rise to the pressure. With Charlee leading the way with 3 ACE's in the next 5 points, I AM came back for the victory, winning 15-13. This would give I AM a 3-0 record and they advanced to the gold bracket.

In the Gold Bracket I AM would face RVA 11-1's. Game 1 was dominated by I AM led by Chloe with 9 ACE's. I AM would take the easy 25-12 victory. However RVA came out with very aggressive serves of their own winning game 2 25-18. I AM started out very slow in Game 3 as RVA's best server gave them a 7-0 lead to start the game. I AM did a great job of never giving up and battling back to a score of 9-14. Charlee made 3 points in a row to get the score to 12-14. Unfortunately a well executed swing by RVA on her 4th serve gave RVA the victory.

Although we weren't able to pull off the victory, the coaches were very impressed by our aggressive serves (7 ACE pins) and how the girls competed this weekend. Great job ladies, we couldn't be more proud of you all!

11 Black | 2-2 | 5th Place

11 Black went 2-2 finishing 5th in the Fusion Freeze at Athlete Performance Center! Once again the girls were challenged with some good competition. The morning was a little slow, but by the afternoon they had much more confidence and pulled out some wins! They fought so hard in the last 2 games and had such positive energy the entire day. We challenged them to focus on getting 3 touches rather than just sending the ball over right away, and they did that very thing! We even got a bunch of kills! It was so fun seeing the progress from things that we work on in practice, put into our games!

13 Black | 2-3 | 3rd Place

Let's get this out of the way, you read it right, we had 2 wins and 3 losses in a 12 team tournament and still managed to take 3rd place. Want to know how??? Read on.

We started out the day with 8 of 11 players running a 5-1 for the first time. The girls adjusted to the changes well and did a great job with their transitions and court coverage. Our first match was against a Penguins 12s team. 9 times out of 10 we would beat this team in 2 sets, but we ended up losing. Why did we lose? 17 missed serves, ouch. By some miracle we actually won a set, which comes into play later. Match 2 was against a Southwest team, it was an easy 2 set victory. Southwest beat Penguins so they were both at 1-2 and we were at 1-1. Which takes us to our final match in pool play against Madison Elite, who hadn't lost yet. If we beat Madison we take 1st in our pool, lose in 2 we take 3rd, take one set from them and we take 2nd. We ended up losing in 3, our 2 matches with 3 set losses gave us enough set wins to beat out the other 1-2 teams in our pool for 2nd place and a trip to gold.

We deserved the trip to gold winning round 1 against South Shore Slam in 3. They are a very good team and the girls gritted it out for the win. We played Penguins 13 Black in the semi finals. This is by far the best team we've played this year, they haven't lost to a 13s team yet. We ended up taking this team to 3 sets, but couldn't pull off the upset.

Our day finished up with 3 back to back matches all going to 3 sets. We only had one "off" match and that was early in pool play. The girls were exhausted but still finished strong against some great competition. We adjusted well to changes in the lineups. We fought hard against great competition with little rest. I'm proud of what the girls accomplished this weekend!

15 White | 2-2 | 4th Place

I AM 15 White started off their tournament 2-1 against Lakeshore storm 15 White with sets going 25-22, 20-25, and 15-11. A hard fought game with two girls winning overpass kill pins! Great job Mya and Jillian! After that they moved onto their second win of the day against UPN 15-2. They pushed for every single point and were able to come out on top. Their day continued with the next team they played being FDL Fusion 14 Purple. They were not able to seal the win here but still made it into the Gold Bracket! They came in with high energy and spunk but ended up losing to South Shore Slam 15 Lime. The girls ended up finishing 4th of 12 in the tournament and are gearing up for Power League on February 11th and 12th!

Sophie’s amazing blocking and hitting helped the team especially when they were down. Ava’s commitment to not letting any balls drop really shined in this tournament! Amazing job girls!