Lots of teams played this past weekend with a handful of championships! The club is having a great streak this season! Plus we had a tournament with 4 I AM teams in it and they all made it to Gold! Check out the awesome photo gallery from that day.
10 RED
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11 RED
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13 RED
We played in the Jr. Red Knight 14's tournament this past Saturday with the goal of trying to include more quick tempo sets into our offense. We had some fun practices leading up to the event as the girls worked on 2 entirely new sets and tried to polish up another one. From the very first match, the girls got after it. With an emphasis on hitter communication and our passers getting the ball to our setters a bit quicker, we found success! Halley Muilenburg consistently ran the B (31), Avery Pierce worked hard to get in place for the C (back 1), and Isabel Hilgart called, and was set, the D (right side) at least a dozen times. To have those lead to points was especially rewarding for the girls to see. It's great for players to see hard work pay off in real matches!
We cruised through our pool in the morning with aggressive serving and consistent first contacts. Hannah Heitzkey was very consistent in attacking more aggressively and Milli Krief delivered some sets that were astonishing. We found ourselves in the championship match against our own IAM 14 Black. They came at us very quickly and aggressively. Their size and experienced middles really made us adjust quickly to something we hadn't seen in quite some time. We lost the first set rather convincingly, but bounced back in the second set to win a very, very tight set. In the 3rd, we were unable to make enough plays to secure the win and put ourselves in a tough spot with unforced errors; which can't be overcome in a 15 point set.
Overall, we showed some wonderful growth and success in our offense and we finished 2nd in a 14's event. To continuously find success in 14's events was our team's goal this year and we have done a nice job of hunting those finishes. Our weekend's MVP was Maddie Katte. Over the past few weeks she has been pressing herself on serve receive. This past weekend she showed a wonderful focus and exhibited calmness in the delivery of her contacts. This led to a consistent performance, one that she has been looking for and one her team knows she has in here. She is also an incredible teammate and always supports others. Her spirit is appreciated.
14 RED
The 14-Red team was able to snag its second first place tournament finish at the Fondy Dig. Throughout pool and bracket play, they controlled each match without dropping a single set. The 14-Red team was able to award 6 players with the top server pin for recording five or more aces in a match. They showed a lot of confidence with their first contact, which allowed them to be in system a majority of the day.
#Shoutout to Violet for gaining more control over her serve, improving her communication with her teammates, and consistently being available on offense as a middle.
14 BLACK
14 Black won their second championship this weekend at Jr. Red Knight Spring Fling. Serving led the way again for us as every player contributed to an outstanding 89% serve rating with 71 aces on the day. #AcePins all over the place: Morgan W with 3, Olivia D earned 2, and Olivia K and Reann K each had 1.
Our pool play matches were 2 set wins over the Jr Red Knight White, Madison Starlings and Club W teams. In the first match of Gold bracket play, the Jr Red Knight Red team challenged us with some strong servers that kept us on our heals. The girls gritted it out to move to the Championship match against the always tough I AM 13 Red team.
The big surprise of this first bracket match was the vocal energy from the girls. We are normally a quite team, however the chatter on and off the court was higher then it has ever been. We even had some ace cheers led from the sidelines!!
The finals match was a battle as expected. Serving runs from both sides made for an exciting game. After splitting the first 2 sets, the girls dug in and pushed to victory with some very scrappy play.
our tournament MVP stepped up her game and delivered several big hits, played very smart and was in control at the net. Normally not serving for us, she overcame her hesitancy and delivered 6 consecutive serves. Congratulations Eden.
14 WHITE
We head up to Fond Du Lac in an 8-team tournament. Our last tournament we made it to the gold semi-finals and that experience of making it to the gold bracket seemed to pay off! We went 3-0 in our pool with some close matches. The is the 2nd time in a row that the team has won their pool without being ranked 1st.
In our first match is against Storm our team picked up 10 aces per set! Mia Z lead with 8 aces and Phoebe with 6 t Maddie with 4. This helped peel away in these two sets to get a safe win. Our next match against Wisconsin Heights was a close one and we knew this was going to be tough because they had some tall kids on the team. With fewer aces this time we had to do it the hard way (Bump, set, spike) and was able to steal two wins by only few points. We had a feeling we would see this team again in playoffs... Our last match to solidify the 1 seed was against Spiketown. The first set was a bit of a battle going back and forth. I never saw a team hit so many shots to the deepest of corners. The girls shook it off and kept pushing forward. In set two Lydia went from 0 aces to 5 straight aces to win the game and earn a serving pin! That was amazing!
Just as we finished with 5 aces through Lydia's serving, Ava opened up our crossover match with 5 straight aces! That has to be the fast pin earning run! Our team went on serving frenzies with a total of 17 aces in that match against West Side Slam.
Going into the finals we meet Wisconsin Heights again! Long story short... We won game 1 and were very close to wining set two. The other team went into boom ball and tipped and set the ball over on 1 or 2 and even on the third contact! Not the most aggressive but proved effective and required us to score every point. We had chances but couldn't quite put enough plays together to close out the game. Set 3 was very much the same with the other team just keeping it alive and sending it over. The pressure grew and we weren't able to snag that championship. BUT... We did get 2nd place and that is the highest we have placed this year! The girls have improved some much and we are having blast being in these close matches!
15 RED
This weekend I Am 15 Red played in the Fondy Dig 16s tournament. With a few 15s tournament wins under our belt it was time to play up and take on some better competition. The girls started out strong against Heat 16 White taking care of business in two quick sets. Match 2 put us up against the tournament's #1 seed, 414 16 Elite. We played well the first set scoring 16 points while getting used to the speed of the game. Set 2 we came out strong and played right along with them up to 20s. In the end we lost 20-25, but the match was an excellent showing against one of the best 16s teams in the region. We finished off pool play beating Lakeshore Storm in 2 for second place in our pool.
We didn't finish strong enough to make the Gold bracket, so we set our sights on winning silver. We started out with 414 16 Blue. The girls attacked them hard, playing very aggressive volleyball. We won in 2 sets, which put us up against Lakeshore Storm from our pool. They figured out something between pool play and brackets pushing us hard in both sets. They came back in set 1 before we could finish them off 25-23, then took a big lead early forcing us to come from behind and win 25-21.
At the end of the day we went 4-1, took 1st in Silver, 5th out of 12. We played excellent volleyball, especially in our only loss. The girls have told me a few times they'd rather play good and lose against tough competition, then win easily. They had fun getting the chance to do just that, and I certainly had fun coaching them.
15 BLACK
This weekend 15 Black was against some strong competition and the day-light savings time change. The first game of the day against Capital White; the girls came ready to play. We only missed 4 serves the entire match which was a key factor in our first win of the day. Next we fought hard against 414-15 Blue, but couldn’t seem to find our rhythm. We finished our pool play against Adversity 15-1s and was able to win both games 25-22, which put us in the Silver Bracket. Our first game in bracket play against 414-14 Nations we fought extremely hard to pull out a 27-25 win in game one. The girls kept swinging hard and pulled off game 2 25-17. The girls were exhausted, but gave it everything they had for the silver championship game against West Side Slam 15-1s. Our outsides continued to find holes and our middles put up big blocks. We were able to push forward and win 25-23 and 25-18 to be Silver Bracket champions!
#Shoutout to Lizzy and Maddy who usually play right side, but stepped into the outside position for this tournament.
Our setters Audrey and MJ who played all the way around and had some great kills as well! The girls all did a great job playing disciplined defense and had hard serves to throw the other team out of rotation. We were excited to finish the day 4-1.
15 WHITE
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16 RED
We set ourselves up for our biggest challenge this year so we are prepped for the upcoming Badger Region Championships! We played in a 17/18s tournament in Lake Mills. Once the schedule came out we saw that 3 other I AM teams were in this tournament. We were all in separate pools and hoped to see each other in the semi-finals! We had the 18th seed out of 20 teams and we needed to take 1st or a high 2nd place in order to make it to the gold bracket. We finally have a full team with the return of Elyse!
I think we took all of our teams by surprise because we were able to win our pool going undefeated. Big rallies and tough serving got us the edge. We were able to defeat Southwest Volleyball Club 18s, and South Shore Slam 17 Navy in 2 sets and Howard Suamico Inferno 17s in 3 sets!
Unfortunately doing so well had us match up against our own 18 Red team in the quarterfinals. We had an epic fun battle only losing by 2 or 3 points but all the players and coaches had fun battling it. We are happy the 18's made it to the finals to play our 17 Red team!
Sisters (Kelsey Corbett, 18R and Clara Corbett, 16R) calling the coin flip!
We are happy to have everyone back and we are excited to compete in the Badger Championships this weekend! Great job girls!
16 BLACK
16 Black went 3-1 on the weekend to finish third in gold. We had one of our most impressive matches of the season in our last game of pool play. We won our first set, only to be down in the second set 6-19. We ended up losing that set 24-26 after a long battle to bring us into set 3. In the third set we started down 1-8 and ended up winning 17-15 to win the match. We gave out two pancake pins to our outside, Lizzy Pieper and one serving pin to right side, Olivia Rottier. Overall, a successful weekend with lots of lessons learned.
16 WHITE
This weekend the girls started their snowy Sunday morning at Milwaukee Lutheranwith a win against Madison Elite 16 Black. They started the day off with 7 girls but ended with only 6! The girls played 5 games in all and went 4-1 on the day! We are so proud of them for being able to push past the fatigue and go second in this tournament! Their highest placement yet in a tournament!! They had girls playing positions they have never played and adapted so well. You could clearly see the teamwork and team bond between them. The way they helped each other as the games went on and as they got more tired was a sight to see! They went 4-0 until the last game against Racine Blaze. It was a hard-fought game and the girls tried their hardest against everything that was thrown at them. Great job this weekend girls! 16 White will be getting ready to gear up for Badger Region Championships coming up this weekend on March 19th and 20th!
#Shoutout to all six girls who got after it this weekend and got second place! Great job Julia, Belle, Kate, Teagan, Addie, and Lauren!
17 RED
17 Red played in the 17/18 River City Open this past weekend and were excited to play in a tournament of this size and the high level of competition that comes with it. We came in as the #1 seed and played like it through pool play. We continue to be pleased and proud with how this team has played at their level even when the competition isn't pushing them to do so. Four different I AM teams played in this tournament: I AM 16 Red, I AM 17 White, I AM 18 Red, and ourselves. In a 20 team tournament where 8 teams made gold all of our I AM teams made the gold bracket! It was a very cool moment for our club. In the quarterfinals we were matched up with I AM 17 White. 17 White got off to a slow start but bounced back in set 2 and made it a tighter contest but we were still able to come away with the victory. In the semifinals we played MWP 18-Black and were able to control the pace of play from the beginning and played clean volleyball in big moments to collect another victory. In the finals we faced off against our own 18 Red team. Throughout the season we have had many fun battles against this team on Tuesdays nights for practice and this match was no different from that. A back and forth match with a bunch of long rallies and tough defensive plays. At the end the difference was our stability in our serve-pass game and our high level offense. We were really happy with how well we stayed patient and persevered through a long day. It was a great championship victory the weekend before the Badger Region Championships!
#Shoutout to Karli Swart...in one of our biggest tournaments of the season Karli played 6 rotations all day without much preparation and experience beforehand.
She played scrappy defense, served aggressively, and came up with timely blocks and kills in all matches. Karli has been an amazing addition to the roster this season and the team loves rallying around her. She is our River City Open MVP!!!
17 WHITE
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18 RED
This past weekend, 18 Red competed at the River City Open and finished 2nd after being seeded 4th overall. With a record of 4-2, we were able to overcome adversity and make changes throughout the day that led to success.
To start the day, we played in a pool with Midwest Penguins, Block Party, and Adversity. We were able to beat both Block Party and Adversity in 2 sets, while falling to the Penguins. Our girls played consistently and as a team throughout the morning and finished in the gold bracket.
Once we began bracket play, we faced our 16 Red team who gave us a run for our money. They are a very talented team, but we played clean enough to earn us a win. We then played River City Juniors, who we have seen twice prior to this match. We knew it’d be hard to beat a team three times, but the girls played without hesitation and the drive to win. This game landed us in the championship match against 17 Red, another very skilled group of girls! Unfortunately, we lost in the finals with our heads held high after a long day of play.
Though we had many players step into new roles this weekend, our MVP for the weekend is Mikaela Marquardt — who kept our defense alive in many games and played her hardest all day. She is a huge part in our success!
Check out some photos from the Lake Mills tournament with 16 Red, 17 White, 17 Red, and 18 Red all in the same division!
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