All of the pictures taken this year are posted on our photo website http://lightsphotos.ifp3.com.
This was a huge day for the 15-1's. They are playing at the highest level possible in the nation against other teams who are very good. They started their march to the finals at noon today against St. Louis CYC 15-1's. They won the first set 25-20 after being close most of the game. The second set started out badly with NL going down 1-6 very quickly. But the 15-1's battled back and eventually it was all even again at 18-18. The match then went back and forth but St. Louis always managed to keep the lead and in the end they won it 25-23. This meant everything was riding on set 3 now. The game went back and forth with both teams hitting the ball hard and making some great defensive plays. At the turn it was St Louis up 8-7. But then NL took over for a few points brought the score up to 9-8 us. From there it was a battle to end...back and forth..9-9, 10-10, 11-11...all the way into overtime. Sarah had a huge hit at 17-17 to bring us up 18-17. St Louis then attacked and hit the last ball out to give us a 19-17 win and a berth in the Championship match. The Championship match was against Invasion from Kansas City. The match started out with a great rally on the very first point which Invasion won, but that didn't stop the 15-1's. They put a good battle against a very talented team. The 15-1's hung with them point for point until about 19 and then Invasion broke away and won it 25-20. The second set was not as good for Northern Lights. We lost that set 25-14. This put the 15-1 team 2nd in the 15 Open Division of the US Junior National Championships! All American Awards were given to Alyssa Goehner, Jazzmyn Tingelhoff, and Sarah Wilhite. Congratulations to the 15-1 team for a great tournament and a great season....they finished 2nd at both AAU's and US Jr National Championships.
The 17-1's had to win both of their matches today in order to have any chance at all of advancing. They won both of them, but that did not automatically get them out of their pool. Their fate was decided by another match between two teams in their pool. Fortunately the right team one and the 17-1's finished 3rd in the pool and are advancing toward the Gold Championship. They will play at 8am on Wednesday.