vbtalk

The annual LIVT hosted by Assumption featured the best teams from KY and a few of the best teams in the country from other states. Assumption lost to Chicago Mother McAuley in the championship match and looks to be the favorite to win state this season. Notre Dame Academy was the next highest placing KY team with a 5th place finish followed by duPont Manual at 7th and Sacred Heart rounds out the Gold Bracket with an 8th place finish. Huge tournament for Manual with wins over Sacred Heart and Mercy. Mercy was Silver bracket champs which puts them at 9th overall. St Henry finished 11th and Ryle 16th. Dunbar, Male, Louisville Holy Cross, and Henry Clay finished in Bronze. Always a great tournament. Congrats to all of our teams, coaches, and athletes!

Both of these teams look really good. McCracken and North Oldham look solid too! Could be a record year for public schools!

Wow! Sorry you had to deal with that. I hope you let the high school coach know exactly what was said and by whom. I also hope whichever club that person was affiliated with suffered some financial blowback by way of other kids from that high school changing clubs. High school sports should always come first. Always. I fully understand that club is where kids get recruited, but high school doesn’t interfere with club. There’s no need to try to cause a student athlete to miss the experience of playing for her school and community.

You have a first hand account of a club volleyball coach or director telling a volleyball player that she shouldn’t play high school volleyball?

Her high school coach runs the club she plays for. The assistant at her high school was her club coach this past club season. NOBODY from her club told her not to play high school. I agree it definitely happens. But it doesn’t happen nearly as much in volleyball as it does in soccer or other sports.

KVCA released the preseason poll. 1. Assumption 2. Sacred Heart 3. Mercy 4. Dunbar 5. McCracken 6. St Henry 7. Notre Dame Academy 8. Central Hardin 9. Frederick Douglas 10. duPont Manual Since the release of this poll it’s been made public that Assumption will be without 1st Team All State and Texas commit Sydney Helmers this season. Is Assumption still the favorite? Will this be the year a public school is left standing at the end? Are the last two state champs being overlooked at #6 and #7? What are your thoughts?

Congrats to Coach Kordes, The Godfather!

I haven’t seen a list of the 49 schools that have expressed interest. I think initially you would see a majority of the teams would be in the most populated areas (as you put it - the golden triangle). All but 10 or 15 KHSAA member schools have girls volleyball so they already have the equipment. The financial investment would be limited to new balls and a coaching staff. Coaches are hard to come by these days so my guess is that would be the biggest hurdle for a school adding boys volleyball. A lot of girls volleyball coaches are already coaching club volleyball in the spring so it’s not as simple as asking the girls coach to pull double duty. If a school can get a coach and they have some athletes, there’s no reason to think it won’t catch on in all corners of the state. I’ll tell you this, it’s a fun freaking sport to watch. It’s fast paced, and there’s a highlight every 30 seconds or so.

I think you’re correct that it’ll be in the spring. The schools that currently have boys Vball are playing in the spring, and so are the surrounding states that offer boys Vball as a sanctioned sport.

Head Coach - Leslie Litmer Associate Head Coach - Jenna Leistner Litmer and Leistner were the Varsity Assistant coaches and both integral parts of the 2020 State Championship, and are both NDA alums. This is a great decision by NDA and will provide some welcomed continuity to the program. Shouldn’t be a drop off at all in the quality of volleyball. They’ll have a question mark at the Setter position due to graduation of Emily Bentley but other than that they’ll have experience at every position. Watch out for the Pandas in 2022!

1. Your lack of acceptance of the facts does not affect the factuality in any way. 2. the video does include the warmups, NDA’s warmups are player led, not coach led 3. timeouts are 1 minute, not 2 minutes. That minute includes leaving the court and getting back on the court. 4. There are maybe 3-4 athletes at most within 6 ft of the coach during the 1 minute timeout, and it’s not usually the same players in each timeout. 5. you don’t know me or anything about me and calling me a liar still doesn’t change the facts. You can admit you jumped to conclusions, that would be the right thing to do. 6. You have clearly made up your mind and knowing the facts won’t change that. That makes me sad for you. 7. Jesus loves you, still.

Deep State your facts are incorrect. NDA was never quarantined by the KHSAA, CDC, or the health dept. They were placed in a precautionary quarantine by NDA. None of the players were in close contact (within 6’ for 15 minutes cumulative in a 24 hour period - those are CDC guidelines) of the coach who tested positive. This was confirmed with the video of the match. As such, their quarantine ended at the end of the school day on the 14th day of quarantine. Even if it was a CDC quarantine, they would have been released in time for the 8:00 match. CDC quarantines are down to the minute. Meaning if your last close contact was at noon on, you’d be out of quarantine at noon on day 14. But that’s irrelevant. They never should have been quarantined, just like their opponents in the match were never quarantined. What you did get right is that NDA does have different rules. NDA’s rules are more stringent than everyone else’s. Your information was in fact, inaccurate and not on point. Now you have the correct info.

Here’s my annual reminder that the state tournament needs to be updated. “Because that’s how other sports do it” is a dumb reason to not change it. It should be seeded and expanded to 24 teams. Also needs to be rotated to different sites more regularly. Valley does a great job, no doubt. But families from other corners of the state shouldn’t have to travel every single year while families from 3 of the 16 regions never have to sleep away from their own homes to watch the tournament. Enjoy your offseason!

Challenged in semis too, one set was 27-25. Assumption was down 17-11 and 18-10 and still won those sets. Their composure and discipline continue to separate them from the rest. Great team, great program. Congrats to Coach Kordes on #22!

They can’t all be 10s. Congrats on the win!

I have my moments, just like a broken clock! Jokes aside, what a night! The volleyball itself is always entertaining. But the rest of the night, the atmosphere, the survivors and fighters honored, the students holding up signs with names of their loved ones who have been impacted by breast cancer... if you haven’t seen it in person, it’s tough to explain. Congrats to NDA and St Henry for putting on such an important event and reminding us all that it’s about so much more than the score!

After having seen most of the top teams in NKY (not all, but most), I agree with you. NDA has too many arms and crazy good ball control. I think St Henry is just too young to run with NDA this year. That being said, records go out the window in this match. I think NDA wins in 3 very close sets. Entirely possible SH sneaks one away from NDA, but in the end the fast offense with too many big arms wins out.

They did not. Padua Franciscan from Ohio beat Mater Dei in the semis, then beat Assumption in the finals.

I’m guessing that’s a typo. Probably 26-24.

Tough call for this year. Both teams lost some irreplaceable seniors. However, so did a lot of the other teams in the 9th. It’s as wide open as it’s been in recent memory. NDA and SHDHS always reload, but each has a question mark or two.

Logistics is a major concern. We can’t change it to the point where families have to travel more than they already are, or the athletes are missing more school. My other concern is that every match should stay as a best of 5 contest, rather than having to change the pool play round to best of 3. Those two concerns are why I landed on 8 at large teams, and 24 total. 24 teams get seeds into eight pools of three teams each. Friday, you play the other two teams in your pool. 3rd place team in each pool advances to Bronze bracket played on Saturday and Sunday. Those teams play 5 matches, and no more than 10 sets on a single day. 1st and 2nd place teams from each pool go to Saturday morning challenge match. 1st place from pool 1 plays 2nd place from pool 8, P2 1st play P7 2nd, and so on. Winners of challenge matches go to Championship bracket, losers of challenge match go to Silver bracket. First round of bracket play Saturday afternoon. Semi Finals and Finals of brackets play on Sunday. Nobody plays more than 6 matches, and no more than 10 sets on a single day.

Again, I agree with a lot of what you’ve said. But I’ve never said we could have a “perfect” system, only that there is a much better way. I think we should all agree that moving the disgruntledness to the #20 team is far better than leaving it with the #3 team. Coaches can vote on the at large teams. I think by and large the coaches would get it right a lot more often than not. If we took 8 at large teams, (for the sake of this conversation we’ll use MaxPreps rankings), the “first four out” would all have either head to head losses to at least one of the 8 at large teams, or would have losses to common opponents that one of the 8 at large teams beat. Is it perfect? Probably not, I’m sure we can find some flaws. Is it BETTER than what we currently have? Absolutely! I’m not saying we eliminate the current system.... just add to it. 16 Region winners get automatic bids, and add 8 at large teams, then seed them 1-24. It’s really pretty easy.

Couldn’t agree with you more, 9th Region is a perfect example. No, I don’t think they should have been left out. And I’m not suggesting we eliminate Regional tournaments. But wouldn’t it be great if we had a process that give regional tournament winners the bid that they absolutely deserve, but also include the best teams in the state that happen to be in ridiculously competitive regions?

“Weekend AAU Tournament”.... LoL. That tells me all I need to know. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

You’re right, those rankings aren’t correct. I mentioned earlier that if they don’t put their info in MaxPreps, it won’t be accurate. However, what’s not debatable is that Sacred Heart is the 3rd best team in the state and they aren’t in the field of 16 teams deciding the state championship. At the time of this post, 12 matches have been completed in the tournament. 11 of those 12 matches have been sweeps. Only one of those 11 matches can be argued to have been the least bit competitive. Do you think that’s how a state tournament should be? I hope not. We do football differently than the other sports because it’s better for football. That should be the case with every sport.