The 17th annual Frostbite Festival will take place this weekend. This two-day event features several teams from Minnesota and the North Country Region competing in three divisions – U18, U16 and U14. The tournament is being hosted at both the…
Access all of Prep Dig
Subscribe for access to all premium articles and rankings.
Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log inThe 17th annual Frostbite Festival will take place this weekend. This two-day event features several teams from Minnesota and the North Country Region competing in three divisions – U18, U16 and U14. The tournament is being hosted at both the National Volleyball Center and UCR Regional Sports Center in Rochester, MN. The event format consists of pool play action that will seed teams into single-elimination bracket play to determine the champion for each age group.
The U18 division begins play with three pools of four teams each. Southern Minnesota Volleyball (SMV) 17-1 Black is the top seed in Pool A, while Stewie 17-Blue and Hammerhead 18-1 are the top seeds in Pools B and C respectively. A total of 15 of the 16 teams represent the North Country Region. SMV’s 16-Black team finished last year’s event as the runner-up in the U16 division. The SMV 17-1 Black features region standouts in North Dakota commit Abbey Bigelow (Kasson-Mantorville HS) as well as SMSU commit Rachel Fink and Illinois State commit Nicole Lund, both from Rochester’s Century High School. Other North Country Region clubs competing in the U18 tournament include Club Tonka, Winona JO, Impact, PI Rage, Thunder, and Rochester Storm.
At the U16 level, a total of 28 teams are competing. Like the U18s, action begins with pool play as seven pools of four teams battle for seeding into round two. The Pool A-G top seeds are as follows: SMV 16-1 Black, MVA 16 HP, Vital 16-2 Royal, Club Tonka 16-1, Club Krush 16-1, Southside Juniors 16-1, and Iowa Heart 16U Black. Other North Country Region clubs competing in the U16 division include STMA, Shakopee, and Northfield. MVA’s 16-Elite team finished the 2017 Frostbite as the U16 gold champions.
Visit AES to find tournament schedules and results for both the U18 and U16 divisions.