Welcome to the Rochester Youth Volleyball Association

Club News

• 8/29/2008: RYVA Fall Junior High Schedule
  
  
• 8/29/2008: SMV Tryout information for the 2008-2009 season is now posted. See the brochure! Tryouts will be Saturday, November 15th at the National Volleyball Center. Parent and player information meeting will be held on Monday, November 3 at 7 p.m., Century High School cafeteria.
  
  
• 7/9/2008: SMV 16-1’s in Dallas--The 16-1’s capped off a very successful season against some very tough competition in the USAV Nationals in Dallas Texas.  I have to say that even though the win/loss record was not what we had hoped for, the girls finished their season with class.  We knew going in that the competition would be tough so after winning our first 2 matches, we felt pretty good.  Day 2 proved to be much tougher but we did make it to the top half, taking 3rd in our pool of 6 by 2 points.  In our next pool of 3, we played East Carolina Juniors and IPVA out of Iowa.  These 2 teams went on to finish tied for 3rd overall.  We ended up in the finals of flight 1 by beating Wisconsin Select who we lost to in the Spring Tournament so that was a nice win for the girls.  Our last match was a loss to Mavericks out of California and our final finish was 22nd out of 48.  The girls were a little frustrated with their level of play knowing that every team we played was beatable but they held their heads high and stuck together as a team.  I was very proud of them and their accomplishments throughout the season.  Our final record was 63 wins and 26 losses but their personal growth and skill development were immeasurable.  This is an amazing group of young ladies both on and off the court and I enjoyed every minute of every practice, game and in between match time spent with them.  A special thanks to our great and loyal “Super Fans” who supported us all year. 
  
  
  
• 7/9/2008: The 17-1 trip to Orlando started with a tiny amount of uncertainty as Sabrina's family was delayed by flooding and Randy's flight was delayed overnight in Atlanta.  By Sunday afternoon, though, the whole team was present and accounted for.  We enjoyed our time at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure and escaped without any sunburn on day 1.  Our first day of play started with a nice brisk three mile hike in to the Convention Center first thing in the morning resulting in a slap on the wrist by the referee.  Our first pool play was marked with intermittent spectacular plays alternating with communication miscues.  We took third on day one, but really ironed out some things with regard to our passing and defense.  Day two was much more consistent.  We played the team that took 2nd over all and did well against them.  We took third again, but played much better.  Day three was great.  We all knew our roles, and performed well.  We finally ran into a team that slowed down our middles, and took third again.  The highlight of day three was coming back from a 16-23 deficit to get to game point.  We also won a game 25-5.  Our final day ended in the bracket championship against a very skilled team from Puerto Rico.  They used back row attacks to confuse our defense and our players finally showed the effects of three days of play with multiple players having difficulty with leg pain.  We finished 44th out of 72 teams and had significant contributions from every player and coach on the team.  Our chaperones provided us with fresh athletes each morning.  The physical and emotional resolve of this team was outstanding.  Non volleyball highlights were the beach, the Spider-Man ride, and the team trip to Sonic.
   
  
• 6/26/2008: The 16-1’s ended up holding their seed throughout the tournament in Orlando this past week taking 9th out of 96 teams.  I would have to say that in the 8 years that I’ve been to AAU’s, this has been the toughest competition any of my teams has faced throughout the whole tourney.  With the exception of the first team we played from Louisiana, we had to play our best to win matches.  We ended up 6 and 4 and 2 of the loses were to the teams that finished 2nd and 3rd overall and those matches went 3 games.  The other 2 losses were 3 game matches that could have gone either way but as one of the girls wrote in her journal, it just didn’t go our way.  We played probably our best match of the year (excluding our win against NL 16-2’s at regionals) against Sky High out of Illinois, winning in 2 games (they ended up 5th overall).  I was very proud of all the girls with the way they represented SMV.  I had a coach from one of the clubs we were reffing come up to me after and tell me that our girls did the best job lining that he had seen in a long time. 
  
  Much fun was had off the court as well at Islands of Adventure, Cocoa Beach and Sea World…not to mention the fun and games at the house.  I’m sure the girls will remember this experience for many years to come.  For a couple of the players, it was even their first time flying. For me, it was fun to see the things we take for granted be so special to those experiencing them for the first time.