April 24, 2022

Day 2 of the USAV 18s Girls Junior National Championships is the most unique day of volleyball of the season. Essentially, the second day of competition in 18 Open begins with 48 teams still in contention – though a few might have been mathematically eliminated the notion remains the same – and ends with eight left and still able to claim the coveted gold medal. There’s nothing else like it. Everyone started the morning trying to break pool and get into the challenge rounds. Then after 16 challenge matches we finally know the quarterfinals. Before continuing, a reminder vballrecruiter.com will have post-tourney coverage which includes our standout players list. Some players who stood out Saturday and are sure to be featured are Rockwood Thunder 18 Elite right side Madison Scheer, Team Indiana Elite 18.1 libero Emma Halter, Circle City 18 Purple outside Courtney Jones and Adversity 18 Adidas S/RS Katie Hurta and libero Gillian Grimes. *** It’s hard to know even where to start. Either with at-large Vital 18-1 Gold winning its pool and making the quarterfinals or the riveting match that saw Madfrog 18 Green sweep and eliminate top-seeded A5 Mizuno 18 Marc in one of the challenge matches. Madfrog, seeded No. 3 overall to start with, dropped a pair of pool matches and took third place based on tiebreakers after finishing in a tie with Adversity 18 Adidas – which also made the quarterfinals – and Gainesville Jrs 18/17. That placed Madfrog in the same challenge group as A5. Madfrog first defeated PVA 18 Elite to set up the showdown with A5. Both PVA – at Triple Crown – and A5 – in Nashville – owned prior victories against Madfrog this season but Madfrog delivered payback, including sweeping A5, 25-23, 26-24, in the highest-level match of the weekend so far. A5 libero Emma Farrell was phenomenal in the loss, while outside Maya Duckworth was outstanding for Madfrog. Duckworth made the play of the match when she dove into the Madfrog bench for a save that led to Madfrog going up 25-24 in the second set. Madfrog faces Mizuno Long Beach 18 Rockstar in one quarterfinal match. Long Beach finished behind Skyline 18 Royal in its pool and reached the top eight by beating both SASVBC 18-1 and OT 18 Chad in challenge round action. Vital, meanwhile, came out on top of Pool 6 after going 4-1 and earning the head-to-head tiebreaker over Rockwood Thunder 18 Elite, which was also 4-1. Vital then took care of AVC Cle Rox 18 Red in its challenge match to reach the quarterfinals. The Minnesota club entered as the No. 37 overall seed and was one of four teams to receive an at-large bid into the field. Vital has just two players over six-feet on its roster – middle Kendall Minta and outside Lilly Wachholz. Also, setter Cameron Berger is the lone junior on the roster. Vital goes against FC Elite 18 Elite in the quarters. FC Elite ended on top of Pool 3 and needed to win only one round of challenge action as a result. FC Elite eliminated at-large Circle City 18 Purple in challenge play to remain in the hunt. Rockwood Thunder joined the top eight after beating Absolute Black 18-1 in three sets in its first challenge outing then sweeping Coast 18-1 in its next one. Coast was undefeated at 5-0 after winning its pool. Rockwood Thunder draws Adversity in its quarterfinal. Adversity had quite the Day 2. First it upset Madfrog in pool play, then earned a shot at the quarterfinals by downing MN Select 18-1 in its first challenge meeting. That set up a clash with No. 4 overall seed Hou Skyline 18 Royal. Adversity didn’t let up, pulling out the victory in three games as Hurta finished it off with a powerful kill. The last quarterfinal contest features Skyline and Sunshine 18 LA. Both are undefeated so far. Skyline got past Team Indiana 18.1 in its challenge match. Sunshine clipped Rage 18 Westside, 25-23, 25-23, in its challenge round. *** There’s an interesting twist to the 18 Open format and the challenge rounds that we don’t see in the younger Open divisions. In the younger ages the top 16 advance to the challenge rounds and play one match for a spot in the quarterfinal. With 18 Open, 24 teams break pool play and the eight pool winners receive byes. The second and third-place teams in pool play an earlier challenge match with the first-place teams awaiting the winners. While it might seem advantageous to receive the bye, the feeling here is that it actually might be better to play in the earlier match simply because of the long wait time the pool winners have to deal with. Most everyone in 18 Open is done by noon on Saturday with pool play. The pool winners aren’t scheduled to play again until 7pm, while the first challenge matches go off at 5pm. The thinking here is that it can be better to get that 5pm match in and loosen up some while the first-place teams sit around and wait a long time. The results were evenly split Saturday night, with four-first place winners losing challenge matches and four of them winning. A5, Hou Skyline, OT Chad and Coast were the unfortunate ones. Vital, Skyline, FC Elite and Sunshine survived, but even Sunshine wasn’t as sharp as normal against Rage. There might be something there. There might not be. It’s just something of interest to think about.