Colorado Crossroads Junior National Qualifier
March 23, 2005 @ Denver, Colorado

Cowlitz 16 Asics traveled to Denver Colorado to participate in the 2005 Asics Colorado Crossroads Junior National Qualifier Tournament over the 18, 19, & 20th of March.

The team started out the tournament seeded 35th out of 128 teams. The first day the team was seeded second in pool and finished the day first. We defeated Grand Junction VBC 16 25-7 & 25-14, ASO Colorado 16 Anastacia 27-25 & 26-24, and Hitaway from Tomball Texas 25-19, 23-25, & 15-12.

Our first place finish on Friday was fueled by stellar passing from Allison Buck and Alison Pagel both passing brilliantly for the day with a 2.40 and 2.46 passing percentage respectively. Setters Joelle Perez and Anne Demme both did a great job distributing the ball and finished the day with 43% & 42% assist average for the day.

Winning our pool the first day set us up as a second seed in our pool for the second day of play which brought on more teams from east of the Rocky Mountains. In this pool we played a team from Salt Lake, a team from Kansas City, Missouri, and one from Tulsa Okalahoma. As we expected, this pool of first and second place finishers from the first day provided stiffer competition.

The team played solid all day and secured a second place pool finish. We defeated the Salt Lake Starlings 25-19, 25-22, and the North Stars 25-14, 25-20. However, the Tulsa Volleyball Club handed us our first loss of the tournament defeating Asics 25-20, 25-27, and 8-15.

Placing second in our pool on the second day provided us the opportunity to play in a cross-over match to gain top 16 status. This match took place shortly after the completion of pool play at 4:00. Winner moves to top 16, loser moves to second 16.

The team accepted the challenge and stepped on the court ready to play and dominated the first game against the Kaepa sponsored Alamo VBC from San Antonio, Texas wining 25-14. Alamo had other ideas in the second game and came out strong defeating Asics 28-26. After the tough- fought loss in the second game, Asics stepped up and jumped out to a commanding lead in the third game, eventually winning 15-9 for a placement in the gold division bracket for Sunday's play.

Sunday morning at 8:00 am brought us a good team - South Shore from Alvin, Texas. We were ready to play and won a spirited first game after battling the lack of ball handling calls from the official 25-20. The second game turned out exactly the opposite and we were defeated 20-25. The third game was possibly the best game we had played in the tournament so far. Our goal for the game was to make their very vocal coach upset so he would continue with his animated snarling at the official and at his own team. We succeeded in our goal by jumping out to a 5-0 lead behind the excellent and timely serving prowess of Alison Pagel. At 5-0 the opponents coach proceeded to rant at the official and received a yellow card for his efforts and we received our 6th point. Alison continued to serve well and we switched sides with a commanding 8-0 lead. The team played great defense, didn't let the poor officiating rattle them, and finished the game with a 15-5 win moving us to the top 8 teams of the 128 team tournament.

As with any tournament our run to the top ended with a hard loss to TAV 16 Molten from Arlington, Texas in the second round of bracket play 19-25, 22-25.

Consistent efforts by Alison Pagel and Allison Buck with serving above 90% for the tournament, and passing of 2.32 and 2.48 respectively provided the ball handling control needed to propel the team to a kill percentage of 37% which was distributed by Joelle Perez and Anne Demme with a 38% and 48% assist percentage for the tournament. Our defense was excellent for the tournament as well with Sarah Charette and Allison Buck chalking up 113 digs and Alyssa Wistrick & Shyra Hoffman combining for 25 stuff blocks.

After a great tournament and some hard fought play the team finished tied for 5th.

Great job!!

Next up ... Power League at Central Catholic on Saturday April 2nd.

MLK Invitational
January 15-16, 2005 @ Newport HS - Bellevue, WA

Cowlitz 16 Asics was undefeated in match play this holiday weekend in the MLK Invitational held at Newport High School in Bellevue, Washington. The tournament was set up for each match to consist of a total of 3 sets to 25 points or for a period of 90 minutes which ever finished first. Over a two day period the team played 5 matches and completed the tournament with a 5-0 match record and a 12-3 set record.

On Sunday Cowlitz 16 Asics defeated Puget Sound 16 Gold in the first match of the morning 25-23, 19-25, and 25-16, in the second round 16 Asics defeated Webfoot Gold 25-19, 26-24, and 23-25, and in the third round 16 Asics defeated Northwest Juniors 16 Storm 25-13, 25-13, and 25-11. The first two rounds provided Asics with some definite competition as the team struggled to start each set strong needing to consistently come from behind to defeat both Puget Sound and Webfoot in the early matches.

Monday morning the team was without setter Joelle Perez who had to return home for a 9:30 am basketball practice. The first opponent of the morning was Washington Volleyball Academy 16 Black. After a sketchy first set and loss by a score of 22-25 the Asics team picked up the intensity level and defeated WVBA in the next two sets with scores of 25-19 and 25-21.

The final match of the tournament was Asics versus Rain City 16 Cyclone, who was defeated in straight sets by this cohesive group of players. Asics defeated Rain City with scores of 25-16, 25-17, and 25-21.

For the tournament the team passed an outstanding 2.20 out of 3.00. Solid passing for Asics was anchored by Brianne Culbertson with 2.41, and Allison Buck with a 2.53 passing accuracy, not to mention Sarah Charette's 73 perfect passes for the weekend as libero.

The team also enjoyed 91% serving accuracy led by Alison Pagel and Anne Demme with 13 service aces apiece. Anne and Joelle Perez ran the offense with good set selection and great accuracy providing a well distributed offense led by the middle attack with Alyssa Wistrick's 58 kills, Shyra Hoffman's 36 kills, and outside hitters Alison Buck and Alicia Proctor providing 34 and 23 kills respectively.

Power League Qualifier
January 9, 2005 @ Portland State University

The 16's Asics team had a great second weekend improving from the fifth overall seed in the 16's Division Qualifier Tournament, Sunday, at the Portland State University's Stott Center. The morning seeded the fifth ranked Cowlitz 16's Asics against the 12th seed Columbia Juniors Black from the Tri-Cities, the 21st seed Athena 16's Alpha, and the 28th seed VB Alliance teams.

In first round pool play action, the opponent was Athena 16's Alpha and the team started shaky in the first game wining 25-19 and awakening more for the second game taking care of the match swiftly with a 25-9 score. The second round brought up VB alliance which the team took care of 25-21 and 25-17. Next up was the highest seeded opponent of the morning Columbia Juniors giving Cowlitz a run for first place by defeating the team in the first set 14-25. The team pushed back in the second set and defeated Columbia by a margin of 3 with a final score of 25-22. The final set of the match proved to be too much for the Tri-Cities team with Cowlitz finishing the victor by a score of 15-8.

Finishing first in the morning pool placed Asics in the Gold Division for the February Power League Tournament and set in motion an afternoon of single set to 25 point games for Gold Division seeding. The afternoon brought competition amongst the four morning session first place finishers-Nike Air-Elite, PVC Blue, Lakeside, and Cowlitz.

The first set of the afternoon pitched Cowlitz against Nike Air-Elite in the first round finishing with Cowlitz defeating Nike by a score of 25-16; second round Cowlitz versus PVC Blue ended up with Cowlitz losing their focus as well as a 13-1 lead, and the set by a score of 26-28. However, Asics finished the afternoon strong wining the final set against Lakeside 25-16.

The day was marked by the strong and consistent serving of Joelle Perez who finished the day with 27 points, 14 aces, and an overall 94% serving accuracy. Other strong players of the day included Allison Buck who completed 35 perfect passes and finished with a 2.67 overall passing percentage, and Shyra Hoffman ruled the offense finishing the day with 21 kills, a 55% kill percentage, and 39% hitting percentage.

Although at times the team seemed inconsistent, overall we played well and are continuing to make great improvements every match we play.

Next up will be the MLK Invitational in Bellevue this Sunday and Monday.

Pre-Qualifier Tournament
January 2, 2005 @ Longview, WA