Friday, June 20, 2014

2014 Puget Sound Region Beach High Performance Tournament Recap

It's been a little crazy in coach Mati's world this week.  All of the work to prep Jetty Island for a great summer is in full swing and there is a lot of work to be done.  Before I let this week slip away, I do want to take a moment to reflect on how proud I am of the athletes who competed at the Puget Sound Region Beach HP Qualifier at Bottega last weekend.

Here is Cyrene showing off her sweet cut shot.  She won the Select Division title on Saturday with partner Natalie.  Then stayed to play in the Youth Junior Division with Maya, they qualified for the gold bracket in a very tough U20 field.  Then Cyrene went to Alki on Sunday with Kat and they won the U18 division.  What a weekend!  Congrats Cyrene, you are going to do really well in Hermosa. 

Maya and Kelly advanced to the Gold Bracket where they faced a very tough quarterfinal match.  They played great this weekend and displayed some of the best volleyball of their young careers.  By the way Maya, how about that big block!  Nice Work!   

Lauren and Nichole qualified for the gold bracket in the Select Division and both earned at-large invitations to the High Performance Camp. 

Lily and Hannah survived a tough morning bracket and put up a solid performance against competition that was almost all at least one year older than they were. 

Amanda and Valentina had a good showing in the Youth Junior (U20) division. 

Mikaela and Morgan put together a solid performance in the Youth/Junior division. 

Bailey and Natalie made the quarterfinals in the Future Select Division (U15)

Elizabeth and Logan played really well in the Future Select Division and were chosen to attend the Beach HP Camp as at-large members of the Future Stars (U13) division. 

I'm quite certain that I forgot to mention several teams in this recap and for that I'm sorry.  This year the Beach HP Qualifier Tournament had 45 teams compete in it.  In 2013 there were only 14 teams.  The whole growth process provided some challenges as an event director, but the reward of watching all of these kiddos compete at a very high level was extremely rewarding.  I can't wait to see how well our beach community does as the years go by.  The present is great and the future looks even better.

Keep up the hard work.