CNY VBC was founded in 2004 as a girls club program for the greater Syracuse area. It was not until January 2008 that the club was able to field a boys’ team. And the team, whose roster included athletes in grades nine through 12, competed in four tournaments that spring throughout Central and Western New York.
Even though the team was technically an 18-and-under club team, the boys team competed primarily against 16U and 17U teams from Rochester and Buffalo and won less than 15 percent of its games. Despite a great amount of improvement from January to May, the season was not the Cinderella story we all had dreamed of.
At tryouts for the 2008-2009 club season this past December, nobody would have expected a season much different than the previous. After a second-to-last place finish at the Rochester Can-Am Tournament in January, the season was not looking too bright.
At the end of March, the team won the CD Select Boys’ Tournament without one of our starting middle hitters. This was when things began to change, for the winning of this small tournament gave us the hope we needed that would power our team through July.
Two weeks later, our team won the 18U division of the Iroquois-Empire Volleyball Association Regional Championships. In doing so, we convinced our coach and club director, Walt Swenton, that we were talented enough to play at the Junior Olympics in July.
Junior Olympics is the national championships for club volleyball, and the division we played in was composed of all the regional champions, like ourselves, from around the country.
After two months of arduous work organizing, fund-raising, and filling a roster to travel to Atlanta for Junior Olympics, the evening of June 29 arrived. Five of the 10 athletes on our team arrived at my house to spend the night before leaving for Rochester at 2 a.m. for our 6 a.m. flight to Atlanta. We all retired to our beds early in preparation for our early departure.
We landed at the Atlanta airport around 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, June 30. Even that early, it was already above 80 degrees, and very humid. We took the MARTA into downtown Atlanta, which is the train system in Atlanta comparable to the New York City subway.
As part of the USA Volleyball Hotel arrangements, we had the privilege to stay at the Atlanta Ritz-Carlton for the duration of our trip. We were all astonished by the elegance and beauty of the hotel.
Every aspect of the hotel was impeccably designed and furnished, from the 20-foot tall abstract painting in the lobby to the perfectly rolled towels in the bathroom. As we did not start competition until Wednesday, we took this time to enjoy several amenities of the city of Atlanta, such as the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coke Center, and an extra-inning victory of the Atlanta Braves over the Philadelphia Phillies.
Our first match was not until 4 p.m. on Wednesday (July 1), so we all slept in and made it down to the Georgia World Congress Center, the venue of our competition, around noon.
Simply put, the complex was enormous. Once you went through the main doors of the Center, it was a 10-minute walk indoors just to get to where the volleyball courts were set up. There were about 50 volleyball courts in Hall B of the Congress Center, and standing at one wall of the massive room, there were courts literally as far as the eye could see.
It was in this building that several sports, including volleyball, of the 1996 Summer Olympics were played. It was amazing being surrounded by hundreds of players and coaches from all over the country who came to Atlanta just to play volleyball.
Our first match of the tournament was against IVA Indy Assault from Indiana. In the best-of-three games to 25 with the third game, if necessary, to 15, IVA Indy Assault won in a well fought 2-0 (25-23, 25-20) victory. Despite this loss, our team remained optimistic about our chances in the tournament. Unfortunately, things were about to take a turn for the worse.
Our next six matches were quite the opposite of what we were hoping for. We lost all six matches 2-0 and we did not score more than 20 points in any individual game. It seemed like these were teams that we could compete with, and in many cases, were better than.
We had a significant height advantage against every team, yet we could not come together for entire game for a victory. In the very last game of this dreadful stretch, coach Swenton instituted a change that would entirely change the future of our tournament.
Swenton decided to move our team’s setter, who had set the entire season, to an outside hitting position and move one of our outside hitters to setter. This would be similar to having your quarterback and wide receiver switch places in a football game.
In the second half of this last game, things began to click. Our defense improved, our hitters became more efficient, and our new setter began connecting with the hitters on his sets. Granted, we lost this game 25-19, but we carried significant momentum from this game into our next match.
Our next match against Club Vertical from St. Louis, Mo., was our first win of the tournament. We played our best volleyball so far in that match, and our 2-0 (25-20, 25-23) victory proved that Swenton’s significant lineup change had heightened the level at which our team could play.
But it was our next match that was undoubtedly the most memorable of the tournament.
It was now Friday night (July 3), and we had the opportunity to play IVA Indy Assault again, the team who we had played in the first match of the tournament. After a 25-22 first game loss, our motivation and desire to win peaked.
We brought an unparalleled intensity and focus onto the court in that second game, and we played our best volleyball of the entire tournament. After a back-and-forth battle the entire game, we found ourselves at a crucial point. We were behind 24-23.
It was do or die - we had to play perfectly in order to extend the game past 25 points (a team must win by two points). After a good pass, a good set, and a kill, we found ourselves tied 24-24 and with the serve.
An ace and a missed serve later, the score was 25-25. We then went on a short run and, finally, CNY VBC won the game 28-26 off of a kill in the final rally. We carried this momentum into the 15-point tiebreaker, where we won 15-10. Not only did we defeat the team who had dealt us our first loss, we proved to ourselves that we could perform under pressure.
Finally, Saturday morning (July 4) arrived, and it brought with it the playoffs. We had an 8 a.m. match against Brandywine VBC from Wilmington, Del. We later came to realize that our team had peaked 12 hours too soon. The result that incurred did so simply because they were ready to play and we were not.
CNY VBC lost in the first round of the playoffs 2-0 (25-12, 25-14). Our tournament came to an end in a disappointing loss to a team we knew we were better than.
With our volleyball concluded, we took the remainder of the day to visit Uncle Al, an uncle of one of the players on our team who lived in Atlanta and who had become our biggest fan the entire tournament. We enjoyed a wonderful July 4 filled with lots of barbecuing, swimming, basketball, and spending time with each other. It was a picturesque day that all of us will remember for quite some time.
I enjoyed reflecting on the trip on the plane ride home. It seemed like we had been in Atlanta for a long time. The city was an amazing place to spend time in and it really exemplified southern hospitality. I can recall several times when a complete stranger would stop us on the way back to the hotel and strike up a conversation on where we were from and how we played that day.
I had previously heard Junior Olympics referred to as “The Mecca of Volleyball”, and I could not describe it any better myself. Thousands of athletes all gathered for the sole purpose of playing volleyball. Beyond than, countless college coaches were at this event recruiting for future seasons. I can specifically recall watching one match that seven college coaches were also watching.
On behalf of the Central New York Volleyball Club family, I would like to thank IREVA and our corporate sponsors for making this trip possible. It was an experience that all of us will remember forever and it was the perfect way for all of our seniors to end their club volleyball careers. Personally, I look forward to my final club volleyball season next year and I hope I have the privilege to compete at Junior Olympics again next summer.
