SEATTLE, WA--June 7, 2009

Alki Beach Doubles
WVBA Mizuno 15 and WVBA Mizuno 14 played at Alki Beach on Sunday, June 7th in the AAU District Championship Qualifier for beach doubles.

Both teams formed a total of 12 doubles pairings and competed against other juniors beach hopefuls to earn a bid to the AAU Beach National Championships. We learned today that for the U16 division, the Championships are to be held in Des Moines, IA rather than Hermosa Beach, CA. Woo Hoo!

Because of the age definitions of AAU Beach competition, all but one team played in the U16 division. That didn't seem to matter as Emmy Allen and Miah Diirell took home the silver and Julie Nelson and Emily Harris snagged the bronze with a victory over WVBA 15s team of Mac² (McKenzie/McKenzie) who finished 4th.

Both medal-winning teams earned bids to Iowa's national championship. Congratulations to all of the teams who not only got a great physical workout today, they improved their volleyball IQs tremendously and seemed to have a great time doing it. Check out the photo gallery here.

2009 Youth VB League

WVBA is very happy with the results of their first ever spring youth league for younger players in grades 3-7. We played and trained for five consecutive Wednesday evenings at Northshore Junior High School. We experimented with the rules and progressed through a modified game of 4 vs. 4 on a smaller court with a lower net.

Thanks to Sarah Chase, Mary Cotton, Lauri Sears, Tim Marvin and Jackie Devich for organizing the league and keeping things running smoothly. Thanks also to all of the WVBA players that came out to help with coaching these future volleyball players. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

These younger (and smaller) players quickly adapted to rules allowing them to catch the first two contacts to emphasize the play at the net with lots of hitting and blocking.

WVBA Mizuno 16-Gold, Mizuno 15, and Mizuno 14 will be playing this Saturday at Fife High School in our final local competition of the season. WVBA Mizuno 14-Gold will be playing on Sunday in the Tune-up tournaments hosted by PSVBC also at Fife High School.