Tawa’s Club Volleyball Dots: The growth of AAUs, getting ready and getting rated

This is “Dots,” VolleyballMag.com’s weekly look at 10 things in club volleyball, past or present, that interest me and hopefully will interest you. Look for Dots every Tuesday through Junior Nationals this summer:

The 50th AAU Girls Volleyball National Championships get underway from Orlando starting on Wednesday with the youngest age groups and the 18-year-olds. There are 39 teams vying for the title in the four-day, 14 Open division. A total of 13 teams are competing in four-day. 18 Open.

Before 2010, AAU Nationals were viewed largely as a sleepy preparation for USA Volleyball’s Junior Olympic championships. Some teams and few college coaches attended AAUs.

That changed as the Junior Volleyball Director’s Association/Junior Volleyball Association (“JVA”) began to expand its influence. Several years before 2010 – October, 2006 according to the JVA website — the JVA formed and many prominent Midwest clubs broke from the USA Volleyball orbit and went out on their own. That meant no more national qualifiers for many and no more Junior Olympics.

For a time, the JVA held its own championships in early June in Louisville. Those JVA clubs would then go on to Orlando to also compete at AAUs. Several JVA club directors, seeing that its championship was being used as a warm up to AAUs, approached AAU about helping one another. If AAU would support the JVA’s April World Challenge event, the JVA would throw its weight behind AAU Nationals. An Agreement was reached and the JVA June year-end event went away.

In 2009, before the deal was brokered, AAUs had 612 total teams. In 2010, more than 1,200 participated. It has continued to grow ever since, with more than 4,200 teams registered this year, the most ever. The increase in teams has made it a “must attend” event for college coaches as well, making AAU Nationals one of the most important tournaments annually on a college coach’s recruiting calendar.

• In 2016, USA Volleyball moved its 18s championship from late June to late April. This had no impact on AAUs at first. In 2015, for example, a total of 216 18s teams went to AAUs in June. In 2017, after USAV’s move to April, 223 teams went to AAUs.

In 2019, in response to USAV’s move, AAU moved up its 18s and ran an 18s only event in May. After COVID, AAU returned 18s to its usual place on the calendar and saw participation decline. In 2021, only 168 18s teams played, only 32 in the two upper divisions.

This year, a total of 40 18s teams will compete in the Open and Premier divisions, with only 13 testing themselves in the uppermost tier. There has been in increase in 18 Club and 18 Classic, however. Those divisions begin play on Sunday and will include a total of 181 teams.

The decline in elite team participation, however, is notable. Changes are afoot for 18s. Expect to hear shortly about an exciting modification to the JVA’s World Challenge schedule.

• Taking a quick look at 18 Open, which starts Wednesday, of the 13 teams in the field, only two, Kairos 18 Alpha and USANY 18 Fortitude, went to Junior Nationals. Kairos placed third in 18 National, USANY finished 47th.

No team that played Open at Junior Nationals will play. Nor will many of the traditional JVA elite teams like KiVA, Tri-State, K2, Team Indiana and Academy (Indianapolis).

“I think 18s are just a dying age group,” said one club director. “Unless you have a couple of juniors on your team, they want to be done earlier.”

The 13 teams playing 18 Open will play for the first two days in pools of six and seven, with the top four in each pool moving to two, four-team pools on Day 3. The final day will consist of a semifinal and final.

Sitting here in California, it’s very hard to imagine any teams other than Munciana 18 Samurai and Sports Performance 18 Elite in the final. Kairos and Bama Elite 18 Renegades, the team that defeated Muncie at the Emperor’s Cup, could contend.

• The 15 Open division, which has a robust 61 teams, gets underway on Sunday. The field is bolstered by nine teams also playing Open at Junior Nationals, including four of the national top five. Tri-State Elite 15 Blue and FaR Out 15 Black are the top non-National Qualifier teams in the field.

• Looking for a non-traditional sleeper team to do big damage in 16 Open at Junior Nationals? Look no further than ID Crush 16 Bower, which last week added a tournament in Utah – the West Coast Invitational – to its qualifier wins in Spokane, Reno and Salt Lake City. The team defeated Club V 18 Ren Reed for the title, a top 10 18s team nationally, for the title.

“I love this tournament because we get to see how we stack up with the better teams in the region regardless of age classification,” said club director Caroline Bower. “Our 16s played in the 17/18 Open division. Obviously, Club V and Idaho Crush have had epic matches against each other. Day 3 was one of those epic battles. In the semis we defeated an excellent (and highly ranked) Club V 17 Ren Matthew team in three, winning Game 2, 30-28. It took us a while to adjust to their physicality in Game 1, but once we did the match was a back and forth battle. They obviously have some elite talent. Everyone talks about our setter, Tenesyn Frye, and our pins, Bella Beus and Maija Howse. and they should as they are truly elite. However, we won because we were able to consistently get out of system balls to our middles–because of our defensive play and great effort by our setter and this made a big difference. We could have easily had a letdown but we didn’t, taking the championship match in two. Super proud of these girls.”

“What made me the most happy is that after winning the championship my 16s wanted to run to the 14s court to see them win their championship (I have three sets of sisters playing on 16s and 14s) and then to the 12s to watch them win their championship,” Bower continued. “These are the weekends that create a special club culture. Just check out our Instagram and you get to see our 16s and 14s storm the court celebrating with our little 12s. Our 16s really know how to pay it back.”

• With AAUs and Junior Nationals looming, we asked some of our favorite club coaches how they were preparing their teams for the year-end national championships.

“CJ 17Kevin took a break after our 3rd place finish at the Far Western Qualifier. We typically give our players a break to give their bodies some rest and get their final exams taken care of. We are now in full swing preparing for GJNC. We have added a few practices during the week and added more cardio as well.” – Kevin Marquis, Colorado Juniors 17Kevin. [Note: CJ 17Kevin traveled (by bus to the Pre-National Scrimmages in Lawrence, Kansas last weekend. “Nothing can prepare us more than getting the opportunity to play several 17s qualified teams [Premier NE 17, KC Power 17, Dynasty 17, Pohaku 17, Rockwood Thunder 17, etc.]” Marquis said).

“We are adding extra training days, scheduling scrimmages with teams from out of region and focusing on continuing to improve while having fun,” – Brennan Dean, WAVE 15 Brennan

“We have really continued to serve and pass, and focus on individual player improvement. We are at our best as a team when players are at their best technically as individuals. We are aware of our less efficient serve-receive rotations and we have put some extra work into those. June brings college camp season, and because our club’s primary goal is to help kids play at the next level we do encourage that, so oftentimes we will not have a full squad.” – Dean Barboza, Tribe 15 Elite Cardinal

“We are actually doing both this year [AAUs and Junior Nationals] for the first time since 2019 (Emily Londot’s team). We finished the end of April with a 2-day event in Cleveland. In the past we typically take a week off after qualifying season, have a week of no-jump practices, then a week of sand prior to preparing for Nationals. Once kids are out of school, for the last 7-8 years we have practiced Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday.” Max Miller, Mintonette m.51, who noted that 18 club teams out of 48 are still practicing.

“For me, May is the time of year to slow down a little and focus more on skill work. During qualifier season, there’s so much 6v6 efforts and team driven focus that technical work goes to the side for a little and everything is driven towards team systems and strategy specific scenarios. For May, I like to slow it down, limit jumping/swings and focus on reinforcing various skills. Then we ramp back into team stuff in June to gear up for the pending grind of Nationals,” Dan O’Dell, Momentous 17 Dan

“AZ Storm Elite VBC took a week and a half off after regionals allowing time, for our athletes to rest, recover and reset. Most importantly, to do well on finals, enjoy graduation parties with friends/families and maybe even have a little vacation time. We get more out of our kids giving them time off. But now back to the grind! We focus on volleyball reps and team competition with tons of inter club scrimmages as well as bringing alumni players back to compete against. We’re huge on high level competition to prepare for Nationals!” Terri Spann, AZ Storm Elite 16 Thunder

“Our preparation is focused around being great in the serve/pass game to improve our side out. We are emphasizing first ball side out and being great with our eyes to block and play defense at a high level in order to give ourselves the best chance against the quality in 17 Open this season.” – Cassie Rockers, Dynasty 17 Black

Prime 15 Adidas Orangeplayed in the SCVA’s last tournament of the year this past weekend, the SoCal Championships.

Christy Stoeckel’s team went 6-0 over two days, with Amber Wang and Emma Owens sharing setting duties and distributing well. Outside hitter Cassidy Lax was outstanding on attack and hit .408 on 86 swings. Saida Maksoud defined versatility as she played middle and outside and on the right, and showed off her attacking power in all three positions. Libero Mak Baje made some defensive plays on balls that other players maybe wouldn’t even react.

The tournament also marked the return of middle blocker Tia Sederquist, who set foot on the court in game action since tearing her ACL.

“There may have been some happy tears from her [and for her!],” Stoeckel said. “She’s the sweetest kid who has been so committed. At season start I said I didn’t expect her to be at every practice because she couldn’t even play. She came to nearly every practice anyways and she even travelled with the team to the Saint Louis Qualifier. Talk about commitment! It made it all the more sweet when her moment came to take the court this weekend.”

Prime finishes the regular season with a 35-11 record and is excited to head to Chicago for Nationals in a few weeks.

At the start of the year, I embarked on an ambitious project: to fairly identify and rank the top 100 players in each of the four high school classes. To accomplish this task by the March 1 deadline, I engaged some of the most fertile minds in club volleyball and beyond to help. I sent them the lists every time they were modified and asked that they share their thoughts every time they participated in an event where a top 100 candidate was playing.

The lists have not yet been published and may never be, at least not in full.

Adding to last week, here’s another tease to pique your interest. Once again this week, I’m going to release five ranked players in each of the four classes.

Which five? The ones the random number calculator spit out.

Congrats to those identified who made the list for their respective classes.

• Class of 2023 Top 100 recruits
10. Caroline Jurevicius, 6-2, RS, Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin (Chardon, Ohio), Enrolled early, Nebraska
23. Kira Hutson, 6-3, OH, Metea Valley (Aurora, Illinois), Enrolled early, Florida
61. Kamden Schrand, 5-6, libero, Notre Dame Academy (Park Hills, Kentucky), Tri-State, Louisville
72. Sydney Jordan, 6-3, OH, Ridge Point (Missouri City, Texas), Enrolled early, Colorado
76. Sydney Nolan, 6-3, OH/MB, Notre Dame Academy (Park Hills, Kentucky), NKYVC, North Carolina

• Class of 2024 Top 100 recruits
8. Hannah Benjamin, 6-2, Jr. OH/RS, Fidelis Christian (Cumming, Georgia). A5, Kentucky
67. Anna Bjork, 6-3, Sr. MB, Oconomowoc (Wisconsin), Milwaukee Sting, Notre Dame
68. Paityn Chapman, 6-2, Jr. OH, Castle View (Castle Rock, Colorado), Colorado Juniors, Tennessee
81. Grace Agolli, 6-2, Jr. S/OH, Pace (Atlanta, Georgia), A5, Cal
82. Ellie White, 5-11, Jr. OH/S, Mother McAuley (Chicago, Illinois), 1^st Alliance, Michigan

• Class of 2025 Top 100 recruits
4. Asia Harvey, 6-0, Soph. OH, Sandy Creek (Tyrone, Georgia), A5
16. Natalie Wardlow, 6-4, Soph. MB, Lincoln Southeast (Lincoln, Nebraska), Nebraska ONE
38. Aniya Warren, 5-8, Soph. libero, Benet Academy (Lisle, Illinois), 1^st Alliance
43. Addy Tindall, 6-3, Soph. OH, Homestead (Fort Wayne, Indiana), Team Pineapple
54. Maggie Meister, 5-8, Soph. libero, Harrisburg (South Dakota), Kairos Elite

• Class of 2026 Top 100 recruits
Cydnee Bryant, 6-2, Fr. MB/RS, Sage Hill (Newport Beach, California), Pipeline
Marianne Garcia, 5-5, Fr. Libero, Millennium (Goodyear, Arizona), AZ Sky
Ashley Theiss, 5-11, Fr. OH, DeSoto (Missouri), HP STL
Alayna Vaeth, 5-9, Fr, S, St. Thomas Aquinas (Overland Park, Kansas), Dynasty
Kiley Brooks, 5-7, Fr. Libero, Northwest (Justin, Texas), Dallas Skyline

Until next time …

John Tawa