Osage

Congrats to Brentwood players, coaches, and families. Truly dominant performance. Scary that the program will only lose one player to graduation next year.

I give up. I didn't realize I this was yet another conversation about club volleyball. Kids are competing hard, giving it everything they have, this is what you train for. Congrats to all who have made it so far, good luck to everyone today.

Credit where it's due: great start for Brentwood today, keeping it clean and efficient. Ravenwood has their work cut out for them. Nolensville on the court now, looking like they've been here before. Harpeth Hall warming up vs Catholic

Are you just trolling now? Somehow you took "Brentwood has one of the deepest programs in the state" and hallucinated that into "Brentwood has no depth at all". So I'll try one last time, and if you choose to ignore, misunderstand, or mis-state what I'm saying, that's on you: Brentwood does not have the depth previous Brentwood teams have had. That is not meant as an insult to you, but rather as a hat-tip to those teams. As to my poor opinion of the rest of the state, maybe so. Tell me this... you beat Wilson Central to earn your state bid. How would they have done in 12-AAA? Or for that matter, 7-AAA?

Hi, Apostle. Can you point me to where I said Brentwood is not deep? I'd like to take that comment back, because I actually think Brentwood is one of the deepest programs in the state. That JV team (which would beat most AAA varsity teams) will be largely unchanged next year. There is nobody on Varsity to replace, other than the setter. That group should yawn their way to another undefeated season unless a bunch of kids decide not to play high school volleyball anymore and "train". (Train for what?) What I tried to say, and thought I had, was that this year's varsity team lacks depth compared to previous Brentwood championship teams. I stand by that. You surely remember (unless you were out of state at the time) when Barb lost Garrett Joiner, the consensus TN player of the year to a knee-injury. Most teams could not have withstood that kind of setback. But Brentwood just rolled everybody anyway because it turned out she had an even better player, future Olympian Logan Eggleston. Previous Brentwood champion teams had multiple future D1 kids not only on the court, but on the bench as well,. This team has some D1-level kids, but they do not have backups for those kids. Back in July, considering individual injury histories and looking at the way-too-many games these kids play (compared to volleyball hotbed areas like California, Florida, the Midwest, etc.), I thought there was a very good chance that one or more of the key kids would not make it through the season without missing significant time. If they had lost either left side, either middle, or their setter for any amount of time, they wouldn't be where they are. Yes, Shae went down for a bit recently, and one middle was hurt for a bit mid-season, but nothing major, nothing extended. Previous Brentwood teams could have handled that, and had to. Not this one. Put it this way... if Brentwood had had the season Siegel did (health-wise), they would have had the season Siegel did (results-wise). The Ravenwood situation... You and TT seem to think this is entirely on the coach, and that she is derailing an otherwise promising high school season / program for club purposes. The pettiness and cynicism you're projecting here is breathtaking. I can't believe you actually believe what you are writing.

We obviously aren't going to agree here. I think you (and those you are speaking for) have this all wrong, and you have an incredibly cynical view of these athletes and coaches. On the other hand, I think you know more than you are letting on, which means your opinion is more informed than mine. If I'm the naive one, and if your interpretation is really accurate, and these petty political jealousies are really the main driver of coaches' and players' behavior, then TN really never will catch up with TX, California, Florida, the Midwest, and other areas of the country that are ahead of us competitively.

Ok, TT, let me ask my question a different way. You are trying to make the case that the coach ran off the team's best player because she was upset about said player leaving Alliance. Furthermore, everyone (the "volleyball community") knows this. If so, put yourself in the place of one of the remaining teammates. This time last week, they were probably thinking they had a real shot at getting to the state tournament. Now the best player is gone, they may not even make it out of District. The season is lost. All because of a club dispute. Wouldn't you be angry about that? Wouldn't you revolt against the coach? Most importantly, wouldn't you do everything you could to mediate and get your teammate back on the court?

I'll say again: I'm shocked at how petty you're claiming this coach to be. That this is just a money thing? I'll go a step further and say I am really surprised that anyone, you included, really believes that's the driver here. On the other hand, likely you are much closer to the situation than I am. So I will ask you to step out of the perspective you've painted, and ask you to view it from the other end: do you think that the player / family bears any responsibility? Or are they (and, by extension, the teammates) simply victims here?

TT: You used the word "us" there, meaning you also think this is a club-based personal thing, and I take you to be writing on behalf of the TPV point of view. So I'll pose the same question I asked earlier: what would make you think that the coach would jeopardize an entire high school season because a kid left the club she works with in the off-season? I'm shaking my head at the level of pettiness you are alleging. Let's take some perspective here. We may all think of the RW coach as an Alliance person, or a local high school coach, because that's our view, and that's the world we live in. But we are talking about someone with National-level volleyball credentials. We can have our take on what happened here based on our limited information, and based on our own Alliance vs. TPV biases. You (TT, I'm still addressing you here) warned pgd66 to be careful of being "highly respective"... did you mean respected? Respected coaches (including college coaches, High Performance Coaches, and National-Team coaches) have a lot of information on which to base their opinions of this coach. I bet even Dan would say as much. Given a dispute between her and a player / family, she's earned the benefit of the doubt. You are going to have to make a rock-solid case otherwise, if you want convince anyone outside of your gym.

That's awfully petty. Does anyone really believe this? I'd love to hear someone make the case. In what way did the HS coach change her treatment of the player? It seems (based on stats and watching them a few times) that the player was the central focus of everything that team was about.

Didn't at all see that coming. Hope the kids that remain can rally. Still a lot of depth there.

Quit? Or is she hurt? If she's the kid I think you mean, that's inconceivable. Not that I have any reason to doubt you, it's just stupefying... she was everything to them, getting all the sets, having a great year, ready for another set of All State honors and all that.

unapproved website stats seem to suggest they are missing the coach's kid last few games.

Just looked at pools. They seem imbalanced to me, particularly pool C. a very good team is going to be left out of gold. I think Siegel is healthier than they have been, but I still think they are missing some kids. TT can comment on Brentwood, but the box score suggests they rolled out a full squad vs. Indy. Also says they hit .423, so if they aren't 100 percent, I can't imagine what that would look like.

Ouch, Page got killed by Ravenwood. Also, Siegel took down Cookeville in 4. The real teams are starting to separate themselves.