Tues. - Day Three of Competition

Day 3

Overall, today was a long and challenging day for the club. The highlight of the day was the 14-1’s sweeping their pool play to take 1st in their pool and maintain the 47th seed to continue Thursdays divisional pool play.

Many of our teams, again, held their seed from Tuesday’s pool play. Our girls are playing hard and are hanging in there as they conclude day 3 of their competition. We continue to play very competitive teams throughout our age groups as we prepare for the final 2 days of play.

Injuries have plagued both of our 16’s team’s (knee’s and ankle’s) as the grind of the long volleyball week takes it’s toll. Coming out of Monday’s pool play, our 16-1’s team took over the #5 seed of the tournament to start off the day on Tuesday. Thumb and ankle injuries to key players challenged their ability to play at 100% and forced one to end her Festival tournament early on Tuesday with a severely sprained ankle. The team played hard to make up the injuries, however, it did not pan out as well as Monday, as the team ended up falling to 26th by the end of the day.

The medical staff and sports trainers at the convention center have their job cut out for them over the course of Festival as they estimate miles and miles of sports tape and plastic wrap and over a million pounds of ice for various injuries.

Mon. - Day Two of Competition

Day 2 of competion was hot and exciting as everyone progressed through pool play qualification brackets. Today's high was 109 degrees outside, but, many of our courts inside provided some exceptional volleyball. The highlight of the day was the 16-1's as they progressed through pool play beating the #5th overall seed in 3 sets and taking their position into day three. The top 16, after tomorrows 3rd round, go on to compete in the Gold Championship Division. Seeds 17-32 progress to the Silver Division. Tuesday will prove to be another exciting day of Festival volleyball. The 16-2's also faired well matching up vs. some very good teams in their pool. They held their seed again this evening starting Tuesday at 99th and setting up for postitioning day for Friday's divisional finals.

The 12-1's started the day as the 14th seed playing the 4th and 20th seeded team's in a couple of hard fought matches, however, slid slightly to 20th overall. Tomorrow's competition will set up for their final day of divsional playoffs on Wednesday.

The 14's played well again and competed against some of the top teams in the tournament with the 14-1's holding their seed at 47, the 14-2's @ 88, and the 14-3's @ 102. Tuesday's and Wednesday's pool play will set up final positioning for the divisional finals on Friday.

In this afternoon's pool play our 15's teams it was the 15-3's that took advantage of some better play and moved up 24 spots from 87 to 63 seed to start off round 3 of divisional positioning. Our 15-2's started the day at 81 slipping slightly to 88th, while the 15-1 and 15-4's holding their seeds at 69 and 94 respectively. Tomorrow, our 15-2's and 15-4's will compete against each other in a 5 team pool to set up the remainder of the tournament divisionals.

It was another long and hot day in the desert and we're not quite to the halfway mark. Thank you for the support of many of the parents that are here in Phoenix. Many more will be coming in tomorrow to join us to spectate the largest amatuer event in the world, the Volleyball Festival.

Take to you again on day 3.............

Sun. - Day One of Competition

Day one of competion has come and gone. It was an exciting day....a challenging day....a hot day....a LOOOONG day. Our teams made it through day one jitters with many of our teams holding their initial seeds for day two. Our 12's made the most significant leap in standings moving from 37nd to the 14th seed to start off day 2. The 14-1's went from 56th to 49th, while the 16-1's moved up 3 spots to hold the 28th seed, all 3 teams still eligible for the championship gold and silver division.

There's lot's of volleyball left in this 5 day tournament and anything can happen. Stay tuned as we enter our second and championship qualifying day of the tournament.

More Festival Photo's at http://digitalvision.smugmug.com

Sat. - Opening Ceremonies

Phoenix, 2009 Volleyball Festival.

Two team buses, a couple of stops on the way to the desert and all 10 of our teams have made it safely to prepare for opening ceremonies. It's a been a hot one on Saturday with a high temp. of 109.....Africa hot. We've settled in and we've made it through an exciting opening ceremony celebration. Excel Volleyball Club is one of the larger clubs with 100+ members represented at Festival and we did it in a sea of "safetly green".

Hopefully, other teams will not try to flag down our members or rush to our courts as we have the identical color shirts as the Festival's the medical staff. They'll figure it out........

Pre-staging outside the South Hall was incredibly hot and uncomfortable, but, it was very exciting for the club as we entered the air-conditioned backstage area to be introduced to the masses. The 12's led the way with the team banner and did so with smiles on their faces. 7000 other participants and several other thousand parents and spectators greeted us with enthusiasm as the announcer officially introduced "Excel Volleyball Club" to the stage.


The preparation is over tonight and we're on to competition in the morning.........