The Ridgecrest Purple Starlings 14-year old Purple team won a grueling 3-day International Tournament in San Diego this weekend. 

The first day of the tournament was pool play at the Balboa Park Facility.  Fortunately the temperature was mild so the inside was only uncomfortably warm (last year the place was a Sauna).

The Starlings faced Oak hills in the First Match.  There was no idea as to the quality of the competition as teams were placed in each pool seemingly randomly.

The first game was a decisive 25-10 win by the Purples with Jazmine Stenger-Smith leading with 9 serves and 1 ace, followed by 7 serves and 12 aces by Michaela Metcalf.

The Starlings followed up with another decisive victory  lead by Becca Stoffel with 10 serves and 1 ace and solid defense by Libero Grace Tesdall

The Purples then faced Daly City in the Second Match.  The first game was another decisive victory (25-8) lead by Bridget Ingle with 8 serves and 4 aces and strong play by Brooke Nelepovitz.   6 of Daly City’s points came off Starlings service errors.  The coaches kept saying “now’s the time to get the service errors out of the way, we can’t do this later”.  The second game was another 25-10 victory with 5 of Daly City’s 10 points coming off Starlings’ service errors.   The Starlings were dominating play and were encouraged to experiment with serving so the errors were acceptable. 

The Third Match was against Oceanside and featured Barthol as the substitute coach.  The Starlings really dominated play again winning 25-8.  Allie Sliva was the hot server with 9 serves and 3 aces with Becca Stoffel adding 2 kills.  There were only 3 service errors.  The second game featured 5 Starlings service errors, due mostly to experimentation as the Starlings shot out to a 10-2 lead behind strong serving by Jazmine Stenger-Smith, great net presence by Michaela Metcalf and Bridget Ingle and solid defense by Libero Grace Tesdall. 

The 3-0 Match record placed the Starlings in the upper division of the tournament among the top 24 of the more than 50 teams.  This figured to be stronger competition as it was pool play against all the 1^st and 2^nd place finishers of Day 1. 

Day 2 started with the usual Starlings 9 am fog, which was now noticeable due to the stiffer competition. 

The Starlings faced  Santa Ana in the first Match.  Santa Ana had some tall players who tipped quite a bit.  The Purples struggled early, getting behind by a few points but rallied around Michaela Metcalfs strong serving with 7 serves and 3 aces, some solid defensive play by Libero Grace Tesdall, and some good battling at the net by Bridget Ingle.  With only 3 service errors, the Starlings pulled out at 25-23 victory.  Game 2 featured some very solid play by the Purples—in fact both teams played quite well.  Lead by Brooke Nelepovitz’s 8 serves and 2 aces, some solid play by Allie Sliva and only 1 service error, the Starlings went on to win 25-21.  This was one of the few (fortunately) cases were there were 2 obvious missed calls by Up Ref (both the Line Judge and the Down Ref agreed)—both against the Starlings.  However, the Starlings hung in to win. 

The Starlings then faced a very mobile Navajo Bob team.  Game 1 was a close 25-23 victory, with both teams on their toes. Allie Sliva lead with 6 serves and 2 aces and strong play at the net by Bridget Ingle paved the way to a Purple Victory.

The second game featured the highlight play of the entire tournament:  Libero Grace Tesdall made a diving save on a ball that was very well hit by the Navajo Bob team.  Grace’s save sent the ball spinning high up in the air, with the hope of giving a team mate time to get there.  Setter Jazmine Stenger-Smith was close behind Grace.  Grace kept her eye on the path of the ball and rolled out of Jazmine’s way, enabling Jazmine to make a desperate pass to Middle Michaela Metcalf.  Michaela then passed a spinning free ball lowover the net and the ball hit the floor on the opponent’s side for the Starlings’ 24^th point.  This seemed to take the wind out of the Navajo Bob team and the Starlings went on to win 25-15.

The final match of the day was going to be interesting.  Due to the Nature of pool play, the Purples were already guaranteed first place in the pool.  The Purples were not told this (although most of them suspected something).  The Purples came out strong defeating Santee Kelvin 25-14 despite 5 service errors.  The second game was also a decisive 25-13 Purple victory despite 5 service errors.  Strong serving by Michaela Metcalf and Brooke Nelepovitz with Bridget Ingle contributing 3 kills were featured in this final game. 

During Day 2 several of the coaches and parents were hearing some very complimentary things about the Purples, in the form of “Watch out for Ridgecrest Purples” and “They are winning”.  One of the referees complimented the Purples on their  sportsmanship, playing as a team, and overall skill.

This first place finish on Day 2 guaranteed a 6^th place or higher finish for the Purples; they were then sent to very grueling double elimination bracket play against the 5 other first place finishers of the other pools.

The first Match was against an extremely mobile and energetic team from Tijuana.  The Purples seemed to remember their old 9-am-start-habits and made many unforced errors (the exception being only 2 service errors).  The coaches had to use both time outs to try to stop runs by Tijuana.  The Starlings appeared to improve, but lost the first game 21-25.  The second game saw the Purples awaken a bit.  The Starlings roared out to a 6-0 lead behind Captain Jazmine Stenger-Smith’s strong service with 3 aces.  Key kills by Becca Stoffel, Brooke Nelepovitz and Allie Sliva; great touches/blocks by Michaela Metcalf and Bridget Ingle and several diving passes by Grace Tesdall lead to a 25-19 victory with only 2 service errors.  The tiebreaker was a real nail-biter.  Both teams traded the lead, and the coaches had to use both time outs to stop runs by Tijuana.  Strong play all around with only 1 missed serve lead to a 15-13 Starlings victory.    We all liked this team from Mexico and were wishing them the best.

Match 2 was against Hacienda Heights.  The first game featured Strong serving by Allie Sliva and Brooke Nelepovitz, with a great joust by Bridget Ingle on game point.  The Starlings won 25-19 with the 5 service errors making the game closer than it seemed.  Hacienda Heights put up more of a challenge in game 2 and the coaches had to use both time outs.  Strong serving by Becca Stoffel (8 serves and 2 aces) and Michaela Metcalf (5 serves with 3 aces), 2 kills by Bridget Ingle and solid overall play by Allie Sliva, Brooke Nelepovitz, Jazmine Stenger-Smith and Grace Tesdall lead to a 25-21 Purple victory with only 3 service errors.

The Third Match was against a very tall (some girls were over 6’) and very numerous (15 girls) Oakland team.  The Purples seemed a bit overwhelmed at first; again both timeouts were needed especially after the Starlings were down by 10-18, but strong serving by Michaela Metcalf and Brooke Nelepovitz and solid defensive play by Libero Grace Tesdall gave the Starlings a hard-fought 25-23 victory with 3 service errors.  This was also one of the few matches were the Starlings benefited from service errors of the opposing team.  Oakland roared to life during game 2, defeating the Starlings 25-19.  Oakland seemed to have a knack for passing/tipping/setting the ball just inside the back line.  The coaches counseled an adjustment for the tiebreaker.  During the tiebreaker the Starlings were to watch Oakland’s setter to see if she made a move to pass to a hitter or to set the ball towards the Starlings back row.  This adjustment seemed to help.  The Starlings jumped out to a 6-1 lead behind strong serving by Jazmine Stenger-Smith (6 serves and 3 aces) and later by  Michaela Metcalf with 7 flawless serves in a row.   Solid play by Becca Stoffel, Allie Sliva, Brooke Nelepovitz, Bridget Ingle and many diving passes by Grace Tesdall kept the Starlings in the lead. This game also featured a very scary book-keeping error.  The Starlings were up 13-7, but then the score board showed only a 11-9 starling lead.  The referee had to intervene.  The rules state that the scoreboard must reflect what the book says.  After much consultation the ‘by the book score’ was set to be 13-9 Starlings.  This did not sit well with many of us; however, it had to be accepted.    The Starlings went on to win 15-10.  This victory guaranteed the Starlings a worst-case 2^nd place finish. 

The Championship Match was against a very tough and resilient team from Shonto.  To many people’s relief, there were official line judges, down refs, score keepers and even a highlight announcer.   Shonto played only 5 players on the court as their squad had several injuries.  The Starlings played quite well with kills by Michaela Metcalf, Jazmine Stenger-Smith and Allie Sliva, solid passing by Becca Stoffel and Brooke Nelepovitz and several diving saves by Grace Tesdall, and a solid service run by Bridget Ingle.  The Starlings 25-16 victory (with 5 Starling service errors) served as a wake-up call to Shonto.  Much to the injured player’s credit, Shonto played a squad of 6 during game 2.  The Starlings couldn’t quite catch up, despite both time outs being used, and lost 18-25. 

The tiebreaker was an incredible tension-filled event.  The crowd was buzzing and the coaches’ hearts were racing (this is not a time to take one’s blood pressure).  If the Starlings won, they would get first.  If the Starlings lost, they still had a chance at first, but they would have to win the tiebreaker game (a game to 25).    The teams went back and forth for the first couple points.  Then Brooke Nelepovitz started a service run of 6 serves and 1 ace, which gave the Starlings a 7-2 lead.  Some diving saves by Grace Tesdall, solid play by Jazmine Stenger-Smith, Becca Stoffel, Bridget Ingle and Allie Sliva and a key kill by Michaela Metcalf then gave the Starlings a well-deserved 15-8 victory.

The announcement came over the loudspeaker:

Congratulations Ridgecrest Purple Starlings; the Under 14 National Champions!

There wasn’t a dry eye in Ridgecrest.

Individual player  highlights for the tournament.

Middle Michaela Metcalf had some tremendous blocks, lead the team in touches, and was a force at the net.  She had 97 total serves, 19 aces and 8 kills.  She had a key kill off a Shonto over-pass at the beginning of the Championship game.

Setter and Co-Captain Becca Stoffel had some great sets and great passes. She had 78 serves 16 aces and 5 kills. 20% of her serves were aces.  She also had a kill that walked across the net during the Championship game that kept momentum for Ridgecrest.

Libero Grace Tesdall was all over the floor and made over 27 diving passes to keep the ball in play.  Many of those dives looked painful.  Many of her passes come of strong hits or tricky passing by the other team.   Grace had a key desparation return for a point that prevented a Shonto comeback.

Setter and Captain Jazmine Stenger-Smith kept the team on track and was a solid setter.  She had 107 serves 15 aces and 4 kills.  She had a serving percentage of 96 and missed only 4 serves the entire tournament.

Outside Hitter Brooke Nelepovitz had some outstanding kills, tips and some great service runs.  She also had some key hits and kills that kept the opposing team ‘off system’. She had 95 serves 16 aces and 15 kills. 

Outside Hitter Allie Sliva had some great serving runs, solid athletic play and some key kills and tips. She had 71 serves, 14 aces and 10 kills.  Allie also served up a service ace for the Championship point.

Middle Bridget Ingle had some great kills and won many battles (called jousting) at the net against much taller players.  She had 59 serves 6 aces and 11 kills. 

Nice work Purples!

Dr. John D. “The Punisher” Stenger-Smith

Congratulations to the Ridgecrest Starlings 14s Purple Team on winning the Starlings National Tournament in San Diego this weekend.  Details and photos and news articles forthcoming.

I am very proud of you all!   The Punisher

There was a professional photogragher at Nationals that was donating his time to take pictures of the event.  He posted them online.  This was the only one that showed any of our club.

Sunday morning found our 14s team facing an also undefeated team from Omaha Nebraska.  At first look these two teams seemed fairly well matched.  Both had some big hitters and fast defenders.  Overall they were both good solid teams of 13 and 14 year old volleyball players.  In the first game our Ridgecrest team had some control problems with their serving and a hard time settling into a hitting rhythm.  They lost this game 19-25.  They second game our Ridgecrest team struggled their way to a 21-25 loss and their first match loss of the week.

This loss put our 14s team immediately back on the court, in the losers bracket, to face the same Phoenix team from Saturday.  It was a different day but the same results - Ridgecrest won 25-20 and 25-14.
Our Ridgecrest Starlings 14s tournament ended an hour later when they had to play the team from Omaha one more time.  This time the emotions of the day and the long weekend finally caught up with our team and they lost this rematch 14-25 and 17-25.  This loss put our Ridgecrest Starlings 14s team in second place for the tournament.

Second place in the Starlings National Championships was a great finish of what had been a good season for our 14s team.

On Sunday our 13s team played a single match against a Navajo Starlings team from San Diego.  This was another pair of close games and another close loss for our 13s team.  This loss ended our 13s team National Championship.
The Ridgecrest Starlings 13s ended the weekend in 4th place in the Silver Division and a 10th place overall in the 14 and under division of the tournament.

On Saturday evening while most of our Starlings players were relaxing and getting ready for their matches on Sunday six of our players and all of our coaches were attending a high performance tryout at the Alliant Center.  We were allowed to send only two girls per team to this tryout.  Chris the 16s coach decided to send Sammi and Mandy,  I sent Ashley and Alyssa from the 14s team and Megan sent Brooke and Rebecca from the 13s team.

All our girls worked really hard.  The coaches had to work two as we were recruited to run most of the drills the girls were performing.

An unexpected treat was that they tryouts were evaluated by the USA Volleyball youth A1 team.  This is a team of the top 16 and 17 year old players in the country.  This gave our players the opportunity to see how some of the top players in the country practice and play.

Day Three was a day of looking forward for our teams.  The 13s were looking for a high silver division finish.  The 14s were looking to stay in the hunt for a gold medal finish.  The 16s were looking to continue their good play from day 2 and end their season on a high note - playing together and having fun as a team.

All three teams got what they were looking for.

The 13s started the day officiating a match between Apple Valley and the same South Bay team that our 14s had defeated the day before.  After South Bay won the match easily our very young 13s team took the court against a significantly older, larger and stronger team.  I didn’t get to see this match as I was coaching the 14s at the time.  But everyone tells me that it was the best two games of volleyball our 13s played all season.  Unfortunately they were not able to pull off a win, but they gave that South Bay team a scare.  Our 13s lost that match 23-25, 23-25.  They don’t get any closer than that.  They lost, but the 13s weekend is not over.  They play a team from Navajo/San Diego on Sunday morning for third place in the Silver Division and a 9th place overall finish in the tournament.

The 14s team also had to ref the opening match of the day against the Tehachapi team that had sent our 13s team into the Silver Division on Friday and a team from Phoenix AZ.  This game had a lot of history for our team.  Tehachapi had beaten our 13s, and last year a team from Phoenix had ended our 14s team run in the Nationals Tournament.  Phoenix won that first game.  My 14s were a little stiff from sitting and standing around scorekeeping and started a little slow.  But once they got woke up they started really playing the games just flew by.  We didn’t play our best volleyball this day, but it was good enough for a 25-18, 25-17 sweep and a place in the semi finals on Sunday where we will play a team from Omaha that, like us, has not lost a match in this tournament.

Our 16s had a long day they were playing at Balboa Park in the flight 2 bracket.  But they made the best of their opportunities beating two different teams from the San Gabriel Starlings and finally sweeping a team from the Scrips Ranch Starlings to finish 1st in their bracket and a 25th overall place in the tournament.  But more importantly, they played well, they played like a team, and they had fun doing it.

This is our 16s team shortly after their Friday comeback.

Sorry this will have to be quick - breakfast starts in 10 minutes and after two days of volleyball from early morning to late night I havn’t had much time to do anything else.

Day 1

Our 13s team really shocked some teams today.  They started out a second seed in their pool.  After blowing out a couple teams in the first two matches they ran into a bakerfield team in the third match.  After splitting the first two games they played a barn burner of a deciding game.  Exchanging points back and forth this third game to 15 was eventually tied up at 17-17.  That is when Maddy Perez, who just two weeks ago was struggling just to get her overhand serves to the net calmly walked back to the service line and fired an ace to give her team a 1 up advantage.  Then she fired another overhand serve that Bakersfield managed to return, which is when Maddy made a key dig to keep the ball alive, so Allie Sliva could put the game/match winning spike away.  The 13s went 3-0 for first place in their pool.

The 14s only had one hiccup in their day when their coach decided to try some experimenting late in the day.  After winning their first two matches easily and taking the first game of their third match their coach (thats me by the way) decided to give in their demands and let several players play different positions on the court than the ones I think they should be playing.  A late rally made the score not quite as scary as it had been most of the game but they still lost.  So we went back to what has been working for us to easily win the third game and end day one with a 3-0 first place finish in our opening pool.

The 16s make a tactical error on day one.  They had a late start (3 PM) so they filled in their morning by going to the beach.  There is a lot of hard feelings over this day and the way they played and I’m not going to go into things here because my opinion is not very popular amoung the parents, coaches and players right now.  But they showed up for their tournament, tired, sunburned and did not play well.  It was a late night but ended with a lot of crying players, frustrated parents and coaches.  They finished 4th in their pool.

Day 2

The 13s team was again the number two seed in their pool and they handled their first two matches with their usual fire and determination.  But near the end of match two Brooke, one of their two setters banged a knee very hard into the floor.  She tried playing in the third match but struggled.  So without her on the court her team played a tough Tehachapi team to a close loss.  This put them into a three way tie in their pool at 2-1 which they lost the points tiebreaker to Tehachapi.  So our 13s move onto today as the number two seed in the Silver divison of the tournament.

The 14s were all business all day.  After easily beating a team from San Diego and some old friends from the High Desert Team from Victorville.  We moved onto match three against South Bay.  South Bay has been ranked just above out team all season in the SCVA rankings and we knew this was going to be a tough match.  The first game went back and forth exchanging points all the way to 20-20, then we squeaked out a two point advantage and rode it all the way to a win.  In the second game, we gave South Bay an early 5 point lead and then started exchanging points again.  Somewhere around 16-12 however our team finally decided that I had not been lying to them all day when I incessantly nagged that they were the better team.  At the same time South Bay got just a little panicky and starting hitting balls out of bounds.  My excited, and hard playing girls steamrolled the rest of that game to a 25-19 victory, their second first place finish of the week and the number one seeding the the gold medal bracket for today.

The 16s really redeamed themselves on day two.  They showed up for their pool rested, relaxed and having fun.  They squeeked out a close first match win in three over a team from New York.  Then they won an easy match against a young Tehachapi team and ended the day with a 3 game win over a team from NW Kern.  They finished first in their pool.  While the championships of the tournament are not available to them, they really rebounded well from Thursday and everyone was glad to see them playing well and having fun again.

On Sunday we took our 13s and our 14s teams to the High Desert Starlings U14s Tournament in Apple Valley.

Our 13s team was probably the youngest team in the tournament. Six of the nine players on that team are young enough to play on a U12 team and the other three are just barely too old to play 12s. There were four teams in the 14s tournament - our two teams a team from Tehachapi and the host High Desert team.

Our 13s started out the day against the Tehachapi Team. They won the first game close but then lost the next two. Their second game was against our 14s team. This was the game that our 13s had been looking forward to all week. Our 14s were not taking this match very seriously and the 13s were pumped up and ready to pull off an upset. Which they almost did, but their upset hopes faded in the face of two close losses - 23-25 and 22-25. Regardless of the scores, both teams enjoyed playing against each other.

Our 13s third match was against the host team from High Desert and the won the first game 25-22 and then cruised to a 25-13 victory in the second. This win was enough to earn them a 3rd place finish. But more importantly it showed them that they could play and compete with 14 year old teams. It also showed ever one at the tournament that they were a great team to watch as they really enjoyed themselves on the court.

Our 14s team started the day with a close 2 game match win over the host High Desert Starlings team 25-23, 25-22. In this match our 14s team struggled with their rotations and getting their offense on track. This confusion continued into our second match with our sister 13s. Our 14s managed to win this match by the scores.

The 14s last match of pool play was against the 2-0 Tehachapi team. Our team managed to get their rotations straightened out and they played a lot better in the first game winning 25-22. But they stuggled through the second game to a 19-25 loss. This loss was the first of this young teams playing career and they didn’t like it. This drove them to a third and final game victory 15-9.

This gave our 14s a 3-0 lead and first place in the tournament. However the tournament officials had decided before hand to have the first two teams in the pool play each other again in a championship match. So we took to the court again for a best of three playoff match.

Our team struggled again through the first game losing it 18-25. They were down in the second game when Ashley stepped up to the serving line and started pounding service aces at our opponents. After turning our four point deficet into a five point lead Ashley decided to throw in a few jump serves. After three more aces she suddenly grabbed her side and doubled over in pain. Since the team was on a roll and feeling good I didn’t want to call a time out. So I subbed her out for our libero, and yelled to the players to swtich our offense to a 4-2 since Ashley had been the active setter in our lineup. The team handled the change well and after a few minutes on the bench Ashley was feeling much better and able to return to the game. which we won.

In the third and last game of the tournament our team let Tehachapi run up an early lead then they slowly started taking back points. Fueled by Alyssa’s mini serving streak and Ashley’s hitting and some great digs by our libero Allie our 14s closed to game to 13-14 when our opponents bumped up and overpass and our outside hitter trying to put the ball away got a little over powerful and caught the net with her wrist ending the game and match in Tehachapi’s favor.

All in all is was a great day. Our 13s discovered that they could play with the older 14s. Our 14s found a few things they have to work on. But they had some wonderful discoveries also. The best of which is a few defensive players. Samantha made some great plays on defense. But the best of the day was Allie who was playing libero for the first time. She covered the court well on offense and defense. She was strong, fast and made several great passes. However her substantial accomplishments were overshadowed by Ashley’s hitting and serving and she was awarded the tournament MVP honors for the tournament.

Our 16s team played in their first tournament of the year on Saturday.  We entered all three teams in a Starlings only tournament being hosted by the High Desert Starlings of Victorville.

We left town around 10 AM which was a pleasant departure from our normal 4:30 AM starts. Arriving at the tournament site around noon we were ready for the 16s tournament to start right after the 18s tournament finished. Unfortuately the 18s tournament didn’t finish until almost 3 PM. So we got off to a late start.

Eventually we got on the court and got around to playing some volleyball. The first match of the day was against a team from Tehachapi. Our 16s players had some normal early season jitters but they rolled to an easy first game win 25-20. Unfortunately the Tehachapi team came roaring back to win the second game 16-25. The third game was a close one with Tehachapi finally winning 13-15.

The second match of the day was against the host team High Desert 1. Our team was a little flat following their first game loss and High Desert rolled to an easy 7-25 win. The second game looked to be more of the same with the High Desert team seemingly scoring at will. However when the got a 13-24 lead, Sarah our middle blocker rotated back to serve. Since the endline of the court we were playing on was so close to the back wall the players were allowed to step over the endline to serve. Sarah however wanted to take a couple steps leading into her serves. So she started her serves about 5 feet deep into the hallway that lead to the men’s bathroom. Sarah discovered that exploding out of this hallway with her serve was working very well. So well in fact that she served 10 service aces, and her team won 3 rally points off her serves to cap off a fantastic comeback with a win 26-24. Unfortunately the third game was a repeat of the first with the High Desert team winning 6-15.

Finally our 16s seemed to get their tournament legs under them and they started playing in the third match. Playing against a team from the City of Los Angeles the cruised to two straight wins 25-6 and 25-10.

Saturday was a good warm-up for our 16s team. We could have hoped for a better finish than a tie for third. But the players learned a lot and now have a list of things to work on before our first SCVA tournament in three weeks.