Downstate Juniors VBC, Inc.

All practices originally scheduled for Sunday, 2-26-12, are cancelled.  Downstate will be hosting the GEVA Boys Regional Championships for the 17 and 18 boys, that day.

15 Black enjoyed the opportunity to measure themselves against some of the best 15s teams in the NorthEast, and the results were pretty good! We swept through our Saturday pool, going 3-0 to advance to the 2nd day Gold Pools.

On Day 2, the competition stepped up significantly, but we smoothly mowed down our first two opponents to setup a showdown with Integrity 15 for 1st in pool. It was a great match with many, many hard fought points and several long rallies. Down 20-22, we won 4 of the next 5 points to take set 1 25-23. In the 2nd set, after battling evenly for the first 10 points, we opened up a sizeable lead and served for our first match point at 24-19. Unfortunately, Integrity wasn't ready to call it a match, and they rattled off the next 7 points to force a 3rd set 24-26. Unable to shake off the dissapointment of set 2, we fell behind 4-11 as we took our 2nd time-out. During the T.O., I asked the team how many of them thought the match was over and they all looked at me with that "Are you kidding?" look of dismay! Sure enough, we went out and battled back to a 13-13 tie! A hitting error gave Integrity their first match point, and after a long and intense rally, they put away an overpass to win the match. Even though we had lost to a very good team, we knew that we had learned something about never giving up and how to battle back against long odds.

The loss meant that we had to work the 8am match, and then face the tournament's #1 seed in Synergy 15 Orange. While set one was very intense, Synergy seemed to score 3 points for every 2 of ours and won. Set 2 featured tough serving on both sides, and some tenacious defense as Libero Brianne Hallock came up with 10 digs in that set alone! We slowly eeked out a lead and eventually served for the set at 24-20. However, Synergy proved why they were the #1 seed and eventually fought back to take the 2nd set and eliminate a dissapointed 15 Black.

Overall though, a great effort against some very good competition! We went 5-2 for the tournament, only losing (in close matches) to the two finalists in 15 Open. Nice job ladies!