TheNoise

On the topic of girls being concerned with the coach at RHS liking or not liking them because of the club they choose, I can say based on my conversations with players and parents there the answer is most definitely yes. I’ve even heard some middle school players bring it up as a fear and wonder if they’d even try out vs just focus on club during high school. It’s a real shame that’s even being brought up, but it’s a fact. All I know is, if I was coaching a program where these concerns were lurking, I would be going out of my way to convince everyone that was not the case. Perception is reality, and if you’ve seen not only her demeanor on the sideline with this player, but others on the team as well, it’s not a reach to draw that conclusion (that the coach is upset about club choice and it’s impacting her relationship with her players). At the very least, there is a significant breakdown in communication. Typically when that is the case, and more than one player or families are getting an unintended message, might need to take a long look at adjusting said communication and clearing the air.

Osage, again, there were only 2 divisions in 18's for AAU Nationals last week. Apex (higher) and Pinnacle (lower). I know there was an event in May for 18U, but that conflicted with Graduation and other locally important things to those kids. I'm all for playing the best competition you can when it makes sense, and here the TPV 18 1's and 2's played the toughest schedule available to them. The 14's played one level down and believe me, there were Open teams that would have struggled significantly against some of those teams in Premier, especially in the last few games. Personally, if I were an Alliance parent of a kid who used to be a on a 2 or 3 team who had never played Open before and got routinely abused in Open, I'd be worried more about my kid's confidence going into next year vs proud of just doing ok. The major Alliance kids that went to TPV everyone seems to talk about ARE playing in Open (16 Alpha) and they did well today. Not sure to which former Alliance kids you are referring.

I guess my point is getting lost. Across all divisions I saw teams that could have or should have played either up or down. Not every team that enters has an AES ranking to go off of, but I saw plenty of teams get rolled and also roll others. So it didn't seem to matter as much what division it was, you had plenty of excellent teams in Aspire and Classic while at the same time some really weak teams in Open and Premier. The number of teams entered in Open seemed to be much smaller than other divisions. Ultimately you'd like to see the division be a better barometer for the competition seen, but based on what I witnessed in the 12-14's and 18's age groups I watched, it was all over the board.

Alliance 13-1s - 24th out of 32 teams in Open Alliance 14-1's - 25th out of 37 teams in Open Alliance 15-1's - 29th out of 51 teams in Open Alliance 17-1's - 20th out of 59 teams in Open Alliance 18-2's - 9th out of 17 teams in Apex (18's equivalent to Open, highest division) Like I said previously though, lots of teams playing down from what I could see. Clubs like Kiva are pretty standard in how they distribute teams across divisions, but I saw several 1's teams that were as good as any I'd seen playing not just down a division, but way down. Alliance showed well I thought, especially given that it appeared this was the first time to Orlando for AAU's for several. 12-1's for example, struggled the first two days, but really played well the last two and came into their own. Some teams struggled and were probably playing over their heads a bit, at least in the 2's and 3's groups.

Based on what I saw in wave 1, there's no rhyme or reason to what teams enter what division. Some of the absolute best teams I saw were in Aspire and Classic divisions. The breadth of competition across the board is staggering. That being said, it certainly stands to reason that the consistency of competition is stronger the higher up you go, but depending on the draw regardless of division you can run into absolute buzzsaws. All that aside, the 18's division of Apex was the highest option (only two available, Apex and Pinnacle). I'm sure the TPV girls who played for that championship and won wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the world.

Actually, we were both wrong. Alliance teams played TPV teams 6 times Saturday and 5 times Sunday. Saturday they went 0-6, Sunday they bounced back and went 3-2 head to head. Results are below taken from AES, exciting to finally see the two clubs play after the last year and a half of talk and back and forth. The game in middle TN is better for it. Saturday 13 Airborne lost to TPV-13 Yankee 25-11, 25-21 14 Molten lost to TPV-14 Yankee 25-12, 25-17 14 Premier lost to TPV-14 Foxtrot 25-21, 25-20 15 Airborne lost to TPV-15 Alpha 25-7, 25-9 15 Premier lost to TPV-15 Liberty 25-12, 25-14 16 Molten lost to TPV-16 Liberty 21-25, 25-21, 15-9 Sunday 13 REN won vs TPV 13-Zulu 25-11, 25-18 13 Molten won vs TPV 13-Yankee 25-22, 15-25, 17-15 14 Molten lost to TPV 14-Zulu 25-12, 25-19 16 REN lost to TPV 16-Alpha 25-16, 25-18 16 REN won vs TPV 16-Liberty 25-22, 23-25, 15-10

Tough day for Alliance today at AAU MLK Grand Prix. Went 0-5 against TPV head to head.

That is a great way to think about bad calls, but it sure doesn't help when the score keeper's taking points away from you and giving it to the other team. I don't there's much that will ever make anyone feel good about that one. I made my share of loud comments in the Boro last week about calls/scores/officials and I have avoided posting anything until now because I couldn't find a way to properly share my frustration without it getting out of control. 2 Major points that I want to reiterate that others have already brought up: 1- The best officials were not properly utilized. GLJ was there to call lines, should have been an up official. He was not the only top official not engaged. Most of those officials I have never even seen before. The selection process is obviously political, as are most things where T$$AA is involved. I would propose a rating system where after each regular season match, the official asks each coach to rate the match's officiating from an Up Official perspective. The tops scores would be chosen for State. As a fan, I'm going to disagree with calls on a regular basis, but that's part of the game. If the calls are consistent and flow with the rules of volleyball, I have no problem. When GLJ makes a call, I accept it without question (most of the time and move on, simply because I know how much he loves the game, and how much respect he has for the integrity of the sport. It was clear some of these people that were officiating were in it for the paycheck only and had no business doing what they were doing. 2- Apparently, to be selected as an official for the State Tournament, one only had to score an 80% on an open book test, along with meeting the subjective (read political) criteria from the T$$AA Leaders. They claim it was based on experience, but again, I didn't recognize 70% of those officials. Neither did those around me who are close with several. Should we be surprised that these issues cropped up? It was brought up by some folks from Siegel that they wanted to hire their own score keepers, who would have been the parents doing it all year long. They know what they are doing and how to keep up. T$$AA rejected the idea and brought in their own people who, at best, did this last year at the State Tournament. The excuses made for the Page/Boyd debacle were embarrassing for T$$AA, and sad. "So and So was distracted, the scoreboard was hard to operate, et cetera" Yet they would not come forward and apologize to Page players, who were really the victims here. At one point during the Page/Boyd game, the down official had his arm up to prevent the Up Official from calling for the ball to be served, but the up official started play anyway. The down ref had to be notified by the Page coaches that play was underway and he didn't step in to stop it. Clearly the communication of these "Seasoned Veterans" and "College Officials" left a lot to be desired. One more thing that killed me, and GLJ if you could address this I would be interested in the official rule, is the lack of calling a lift when a player would receive a serve with their hands at chest level or lower. All through the season this was called a lift, even by some of the more junior officials. At least 75% of the time it was called. At State, several teams were getting away with ball handling murder. State is supposed to be where everyone is at the top of their game and mistakes are magnified due to what's at stake. It's as if there was a mandate by T$$AA to not call the games close from a ball handling perspective. Historically, the State Tournament was called close, and I always saw that as a good thing. It doesn't do anyone justice to allow people to play through violations as it cements bad habits for the players, and in some cases could cause skill regression. Then again, if the points you already scored are going to be taken away, I guess none of it really matters... It's just disappointing that this year's State Tournament Officiaiting was such a dramatic drop off from previous years. I don't know if it was due to the smaller venue or what, but it was clear to everyone. I'm finished with my rant now... I hope I didn't offend anyone.

I was also present for the Page event. Didn't have a problem at all with the kids yelling. Loved the enthusiasm! Need more of it! I can attest to GLJ's efforts to manage the non-player distractions, he did a fine job, as per his usual. I was more disappointed in the parents that became so angry they began stepping onto the court as the player was trying to serve. Anytime you've got a tournament setting where there are 2 nets on one gym, there's limited space on at least one endline, if not both. There were some things that went on there from some parents that were just incredible. As a golfer and a tennis player, I can understand the distraction on the serve, but why is the serve any different from an attack, set, or pass? Are we saying it's ok to distract then, but just not the serve? That seems silly to me. I don't think the players hear much out there anyway. If they can't hear me yell, "Out!" when they are standing on the end line about to take the ball with their hands, they can't hear anything.

Didn't get to see the last two games, but the Girls from Page came through after dropping game 1 to Eagleville. The Lady Eagles defeated Van Buren in the first game tonight 3-0 (game one was very close). Page Defeated Community 3-1, where Community played very well, taking advantage of errors by the Patriots to take game 2. Nicole Smith won the Tournament MVP. I'm sure Pageman will give everyone a much better report later...

Update via Text message from the site- Page goes 2-2 in the pool play today, loses to USJ and Danville, but beats Ezell-Harding and Notre Dame. I don't have scores, just results....

Update on Page's two games, they played the game VS Lex TN w/o seniors Becca Shreeve, Katie Vanderberg, and setter Jennica McGuire. No injuries or discipline reasons, they just wanted to see what next years group could do together. They were without J. McGuire for both matches as she was not at the event for today. The other two seniors did play in the LafKY game. Cassidy Smith (SO) played in Jennica's place. Jennica will return for Page tomorrow.

I have heard that Page won their first match, which I believe was against Lexington, TN which did not count towards their pool play since North Bullit (sp?) pulled out. The Lady Patriots lost 25-12, 25-19 to Lafayette KY. Due to the fact that only two teams were in this pool, Page finished second. Anyone else have any scores or results from this event?

Dossman, So maybe my command of the English language is off a bit, but I thought I was pretty clear in my response. I have been a line judge before and I thought I had shared my experiences on my last post, but I guess it didn't get through. I'll try again. From my experience, most Up Officials will go over things and also converse between games about calls/procedures/points of concern. I did not feel like the Up Official gave enough support to the line judges. You are right, they are the paid and trained ones, so the responsibility lies with them, not you or the other line judge. If you feel it's necessary to make "Ivory Tower" comments, that's fine. I have no problem with that and I'm sorry you took offense to my comments. That was not my intention and I apologize.

I couldn't agree more, GLJ. Most of the time the close calls can go either way and even themselves out. Like I said in my original post, If the line judges are not making or paying attention to the calls for which they are depended upon, it is up to the Up ref to remind them/educate them on what to look for in certain instances. I know there isn't alot of time before-hand for instruction. That's exactly how my first time line judging went, but every up official I have worked with will discuss close calls with me in between games and "compare notes" I didn't mean to imply that the volunteers did not care about what they were doing, nor did I mean to say that these particular line judges did an abysmol job. Fact is, they did not, they did well. There are always going to be close plays that one side or the other is going to be up in arms about. The problem with this match, I felt, was that they weren't consistent with what they were watching. Granted, how an up ref could possibly watch the ball, net, center line, back row, AND the what the Line Judges are watching is way beyond me. All in all, the down call in game four didn't cost Eagleville the match, much less the game. Page had an SE on the very next point and the Eagles had their chance to close it out and didn't get it done. The great thing is that so many people were there supporting both teams and cheering with passion and volume. That means more to me than anything else. It's just such a great game...