All of the pictures taken this year are posted on our photo website http://lightsphotos.ifp3.com.
This was a big day for the 15-1's. They played at 3pm their last match of the 8 team pool they were in. It was against TAV. The match was a tough one. We had a chance in the first set to win it, but in the end TAV came back and won set 1 and then won the second set. This put us 2nd in the pool with a 5-2 overall record. The 2nd place teams were then paired up against a 3rd place team from another pool in a challenge match. We were up against Long Beach 15-1's. This was a very good match. We were down in set 1 and came back to win it 27-25. Set 2 was neck and neck all the way up to about 18 and then Long Beach broke away and won it 25-19. This meant a 3rd set...I thought it was over because the kids looked very tired after playing for basically 7 days. The 3rd set was once again point for point on each side until about 11-11 then we broke away for a few points and we ended up winning 15-12. This put us in the top 8 in the tournament, and we had to play one more match in an hour to get into the Final 4 Gold Bracket. The match was against OVA, the team we lost to in Orlando in the finals of the AAU Championships. The match started out in Northern Lights favor quickly with NL winning 25-14 and stunning OVA. However OVA did not roll over and play dead...in fact they came right back and won the 2nd set 13-25. This meant it was all coming down to the 3rd set for the right to be in the Gold Bracket. NL started out slow but the 15-1's fought back to take the lead at 8-6. Then with Kara serving we ran off about 6 points in a row. OVA was never able to recover from that run and Northern Lights won 15-8 and advanced to the Gold Semi Finals. They are now assured of at least a Bronze medal and at least a 3rd place finish. They are in the top 4 of the nation! They will play in the semi finals against St Louis CYC at noon on Tuesday.
The 17-1's started their tournament today in the 17 National Division. They had a rough day. They started out very poorly by losing to Pinellas Heat in 3 sets. Their second set wasn't much better....they lost that one in 2 straight sets to Impact from Southern California. This put them in position of having to win every remaining match in their 6 team pool if they want to advance. Their 3rd match of the day was against Cincinnati and we knew what was at stake. The 17-1's went to work and beat them in two straight sets without every really being in danger of losing. They will now have 2 more matches on Tuesday and they need to win them in order to advance out of the pool.