Missouri Teams in Action at Triple Crown – 16s
One of the premier tournaments of the season took place over the weekend in Kansas City with the Triple Crown National Invitational Tournament. The event which normally takes place in February was shifted to May due to the pandemic. This…
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Continue ReadingOne of the premier tournaments of the season took place over the weekend in Kansas City with the Triple Crown National Invitational Tournament. The event which normally takes place in February was shifted to May due to the pandemic. This affected some of the teams who would participate and almost the whole 18-year-old division. Nonetheless, there was some great volleyball on display. We didn’t get to capture most of it due to the shift in video vendors for this tournament but we were able to capture bits and pieces from our connections. With that said, we don’t have a ton of player highlights but here are the Missouri/Kansas teams and how they fared over the three-day tournament.
Let us start with how the tournament operates. A select number of teams enter the tournament in the “Elite” category. These teams open up day 1 in power pools playing some of the other top teams in the country. After Day 1, these teams stay in the elite brackets and play for seeding for bracket play. The other teams start in the challenge pools on Day 1 and compete to enter the elite side of play by winning their pool. The remaining team goes to the Open or Club pools.
16s Division
Some teams are peaking at the right time around the country. The question to ask is did some teams peak too early? The 16s Division is loaded in USAV and many of them ventured to Kansas City as the last major tune-up before Las Vegas. KC Power 16-1 entered the tournament as the 3rd overall seed and went undefeated in their Power Pool. Rockwood Thunder 16 Elite were awarded a top seed in their pool but dropped a match to Top Select to finish second. Mavs 816 16-1 also finished second in their pool going 2-1. Both Mavs KC 16-1 and Dynasty 16 Black had a rough first day going winless.
Day 1 of the challenge pools showed success for PVA 16 Elite, after a 3-0 record. Invasion 16 Black, 417 Juniors 16-1, and Rockwood Thunder 16 Navy all finished third in their pools with 1-2 records. Invasion, 417, and Rockwood Navy all moved on to the select pool play on Sunday. 417 Juniors had a turnaround from the opening day, going 2-1. Navy ended up in a three-team pool and managed to split their matches and then won a later crossover match. Invasion ended up in a pool where three teams went 1-2, but in the tiebreakers, they fell to third place. With the success of the opening day, PVA 16 Elite moved on to the open bracket for Sunday. They won their first two matches in straight sets to advance to Monday’s semifinal round.
Sunday started with crossover matches in the Elite division for seeding purposes. KC Power 16-1 faced off with the number one seed Drive Nation. After a dominating February and March, Power was on a roll and looked to be the clear-cut favorite in the division but Drive Nation 16 Red, Legacy 16-1, A5 Gabe and TAV 16 Black have emerged as strong contenders in the age group. Did Power peak too soon? They suffered two losses at Show Me and one at Northern Lights. Time will tell. However, in the seeding match, Drive Nation swept Power in two 25-23, 25-19. Two HOA teams battled in their seeding match in Dynasty 16 Black and Mavs KC 16-1. Dynasty won the battle 25-14, 25-22. After Rockwood Thunder 16 Elite’s second-place pool finish, they had to play an elite challenge match to stay on that side of the tournament. They convincingly took care of business, dropping Austin Skyline 25-8, 25-17.
Another match that contained local flavor was Mavs 816 16-1 and PVA 16 Elite. The match went three with Mavs etching it out 15-12 in the third. Elite bracket play started immediately after the challenge matches and Mavs KC 16-1 got back to winning ways beating No Name Volleyball. Rockwood Thunder 16 Elite ran into a strong Houston Juniors team and was defeated in straight sets. Dynasty 16 Black had similar unfortunate dealings, losing in three in the first round of bracket play to OT 16 J Will. KC Power bounced back to advance to the next round. Mavs 816 fell to Premier Nebraska in three to round out the opening round of Elite bracket play. To round out Day 2, Mavs KC lost to top seed Drive Nation and KC Power eliminated OT 16 from Elite title contention. The teams that lost in the Elite bracket transferred over to the 17th place bracket, where Rockwood Thunder 16 Elite hoped to regain their mojo but couldn’t in a loss to High Tide. Dynasty 16 Black and Mavs 816 did get back to their winning ways to complete their Sunday.
This brings us to Championship Monday. In the Select Championship bracket, Rockwood 16 Navy dropped their opening match to Ozark Juniors. 417 Juniors won their first two matches in the Select 10th place bracket before falling at the hands OJVA. Staying in the Select brackets, Invasion 16 Black went down to start the day to Athena 16-1 Gold.
In the Open bracket, PVA 16 Elite went down in the semi-final then battled but came short in a three-set slugfest against TPV Elite in the 3rd place match, 24-26, 25-21, 15-17.
The 17th place Elite bracket teams that moved on to Monday included Dynasty 16 Black and Mavs 816 16-1. They both won their first matches on Monday to meet up in the bracket semifinals. Mavs won the match up handily, 25-15, 25-15 but fell short in the 17th place battle to Arizona Storm. Mavs KC 16-1 started play in the 9th place bracket of the Elite division versus Minnesota Select 16-1. Both teams won a set and the third set went back and forth until Select squeezed out a 19-17 victory. Mavs would tie for 13th. The Elite bracket started the day with KC Power dropping their match against a really good A5 team. This loss knocked Power to the 5th place bracket where they rebounded with a win over 1st Alliance in three. The eventual champion of the NIT Triple Crown was A5 16 Gabe.