Opening Weekend!

What a great opening weekend! We had 10 juniors tournaments and one adult tournament this first weekend of the New Year and from what I saw, everyone was really excited and happy to be playing!

I want to start off by giving a shout-out to two officials who were recognized by a club director for doing an outstanding job at the NSMVC G13 Invite on Sunday: Brittany Baxter and Michael Schneck. Said Dante from Ozaukee Wave: "Just saying it was a 13's tournament gives you a clue to how difficult it can be to ref that age level. They were very consistent in making calls or not making calls. They understood it was the first tournament for all the teams and let the kids play without making a lot of calls that would have been made at a higher age level. After the tournament I told them what a great job they did.  Somehow I was hoping they could be congratulated by more than my captains and me." Well there you go - GOOD JOB Brittany and Michael and keep up the good work!

On Sunday, the first adult tournament of the year took place at Arrowhead High School (a report will come later!) and we posted a bunch of photos from the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.214676185285749.54200.144504375636264&type=1 - it's a public page so you don't even need an account to look at it. There were five men's teams there and even though they were competing against each other, there was a great sense of camaraderie between all of the guys. Julie Voeck was on hand to work with the officials and Nancy Paulson ran a scorekeeping session, and tournament director Terry Paulson was buzzing around like normal. If you haven't been to an adult event, it's very low-key and laid back, but a lot of fun, and some pretty good volleyball too! If you're an adult, grab six of your friends and talk to the Region office about how to start a team!

Sunday afternoon I stopped out at the Let The Games Begin II tournament at Center Court to talk with some parents and coaches and to take some photos. Those are also posted on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/media/set/?set=a.214685418618159.54208.144504375636264&type=1

I saw some really good, active coaches giving constructive instruction, which was awesome to see - especially when the players responded! It was a G13, 14, 15, 15 tournament but I want to give a special shout-out to the B12s teams that were playing, and doing a great job! I saw the Southwest Milwaukee team play and coach Chris Reininger was doing a fantastic job being active and keeping his kids focused and offering instruction - and the boys were having fun as far as I could tell!

There were several close matches and some up-and-down matches, but that's to be expected this early in the year. But I was so excited to see all of the passion that the players, coaches and parents had - it was invigorating! By watching Eclipse's Alan Capps, you would never be able to tell it was Jan. 8!

Also a special recognition to the R1s at the tournament (both professional and coaches) who were helping the teams with the correct pre-match protocol that Badger Region is using. A video of the procedure can be found on http://volleyballreftraining.net/indoor_modules.php - it's the second red from the bottom. At the fall meeting of all of the junior club directors, they decided to stay with this USA Volleyball standard pre-match protocol (the entire team stands on the sideline, walk to the center of the court, wave, shake hands, huddle) to keep it consistent when teams go to other regions or national events.

All in all, it was a great weekend of volleyball! If you'd like to submit your thoughts on anything Badger Region-related, please just email jarmsondyer@badgervolleyball.org with VolleyBlog in the subject and I'll get it posted. Also, please remember to email your photos to us at badgerregionphotos@gmail.com and we can use them on the main header of our website and on Facebook. Be sure to also tag Badger Region Volleyball in your photos on Facebook!

Keep up the great work Badger Region!
Jen