SEATTLE, WA - Mar 25, 2008
PNQ JO Qualifier
WVBA teams are in their most important part of the season now as they seek bids to the national championship tournament in Dallas.

This run started two weekends ago in Denver with the Colorado Crossroads qualifier and continued over last week and will continue this coming weekend in Spokane with the Pacific NW Qualifier.

WVBA Mizuno 15, Mizuno 14 and Mizuno 14-Red were in Spokane last weekend and played Fri-Sat-Sun. All results can be reviewed at the AES website. Click on the Tournament Schedule/Results link on the left hand side and then click on Pacific NW Qualifier Week #1 link.

All three teams played in the Open Division. Although the fields are not large in numbers they are large in terms of quality. Some of the toughest clubs in the country chose to travel to Spokane to compete for a bid against the best clubs of the Northwest.

WVBA Mizuno 15 was able to move up into the top half after the first day of competition on Friday. Saturday didn't go as well for the Academy 15s as they finished 4th in their pool to place them in Flight #1 Sunday. They faced off with Coast 15 Mizuno Chad on Sunday morning. They beat them soundly in the 1st set but couldn't keep it going and fell in 3 to finish 7th overall.

WVBA Mizuno 14 were off to a great 2-0 start Friday morning with wins over Instinct Tigers and OJVA. They fell to Mizuno Long Beach in their next match setting the stage for an up or down match against Santa Barbara to stay in the hunt for an open bid. They fought hard in the 2nd set to win 30-28 to force a tie-breaker. They lost the 3rd set 9-15 to fall into the lower half. Mizuno 14 won their Saturday pool to advance to Flight 2 for Sunday. They swept through their rematches with City Beach and Instinct to win Flight 2 and earn a 9th place finish overall.

WVBA Mizuno 14-Red had a very rough start going 0-3 in their first pool Friday to finish 4th. Saturday started better for 14-Red with a hard-fought win in 3 over Texas Titans and a 2 set sweep of KJ 14 Baden, they worked their way into Flight 2 for Sunday. Their first opponent was City Beach 14 Black and they came out hard with a 25-23 win in the first set only to drop the next two sets to finish 13th overall.

Crossroads JO Qualifier
WVBA Mizuno 18, Mizuno 17 and Mizuno 16 traveled to Denver, Colorado two weekends ago to compete in the season's first opportunity to qualify for Junior Olympics.

All three teams competed in the Open Division. There were 3 bids available in each of the three age groups at this qualifier.

WVBA Mizuno 18 came through day 1 and day 2 the hard way to reach the Gold Division. Mizuno 18 forced 3-way ties for 2nd place in each of their first two pools. They went on to win the tie-breaker games in each case to continue to advance.

Mizuno 18 nearly forced another 3-way tie on their Gold pool in Sunday before dropping a heartbreaker to Swat to finish 3rd in their Gold pool and tied for 7th overall. Nike NW 18 Air-Elite from Gresham, OR earned a bid by finishing 3rd.

WVBA Mizuno 17 also reached the Gold Pools for round three after finishing 1st on day 1 and 2nd in their pool in the second round.

Mizuno 17 dropped hard in their first round Gold Division match on Saturday evening to AEV from Amarillo. They regrouped early Sunday morning to take overall #1 seed Vision 17 Gold to three and served for the match leading 14-13 before dropping the match 14-16. They finished very strong by thumping Front Range 17 Silver in 2 to finish 3rd in their pool and tied for 5th overall.

WVBA Mizuno 16 came up just two points short of earning a spot in the Gold Division when they lost to Nebraska Elite Saturday afternoon 13-15 in the 3rd.

Mizuno 16 came away 15th overall along with strong wins over northwest rivals Nike NW and Webfoot Juniors.

The four elder WVBA teams will travel to Spokane this weekend to compete in the second weekend of the PNQ. The pools have not yet been posted for Week #2 of the Spokane qualifier. Keep checking the AES website for pools and live results. Click on the 'Tournament Schedule/Results' link on the left hand side and then click on 'Pacific NW Qualifier Week #2' link when it appears probably sometime Wednesday of this week.