Northern Nevada Juniors: Welcome

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Northern Nevada Juniors coaches Jason Sterrett, KatiJo Matthews, and Alix Cirac headed to Tampa, Flor. Dec. 16-20 to join one of the largest annual volleyball gatherings in the country. They attended the AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) Convention and the Final Four Tournament, in which the Penn State Nittany Lions, Texas Longhorns, Hawaii Wahine and Minnesota Gophers battled it out for the national championship.

The coaches spent the days sitting in on great seminars about all aspects of the game. Marv Dunphy, Hugh McCutcheon, Karch Kiraly, Alan Knipe and other pillars of the sport were the ones teaching the classes! Our  coaches were excited to see that many of the mental and skill philosophies highlighted and emphasized by these volleyball greats are the same ones we use at the the club and high school levels. 

Thursday and Saturday nights were spent at the St. Pete Times Forum watching outstanding volleyball matches. In Thursdays semi-final matches, Penn State defeated the WAC's Hawaii 3-1 and Texas defeated Minnesota 3-0.

Saturday night's championship match completely exceeded everyone's expectations when Texas took the first two sets off Penn State. Incredibly, Penn State was able to come back in the third set from a deficit and eventually win the match, 15-12 in the fifth set.

Here are some good ESPN articles about the match. 

Penn State, Texas to play for title

Nothing Can Stop Penn State. Or Can It?

5 questions about the NCAA volleyball tourney 

In the meantime, Alix and KatiJo were starstruck by the people at the convention. Here are some photos of them with volleyball greats Karch Kiraly and Sinjin Smith. What an inspirational and exciting week!