Wave 16-Brennan Builds Momentum With Win Over NKYVC
The tale of a “Wave” versus a “Tsunami”. Wave 16-Brennan swept a red hot, NKYVC 16-1 Tsunami squad who came into the match with an impressive 2-0 start to the day and a big Central Zone Championships as well.
How Wave finished their morning with a huge win and plenty of momentum was not how it started, being short handed with injuries and having another key athlete go down in the first match with an injury.
@WAVEVolleyball 16 Brennan takes set one over NKYVC. Winning the out of system points and playing extremely clean @TCVolleyballNIT pic.twitter.com/RNuu05AInU
— Chris Fitzgerald (@PrepDigChris) February 19, 2022
“8-8 first set of the tournament one of our starters goes down with an injury ten minutes into playing. We’ve had to bounce back right from the start,” said Coach Brennan Dean.
“Going home today and being 1-2 versus being 0-3 is a completely different mindset. For us to get a win against a 2-0 is what this team needed to start clicking and getting some rhythm. It was important for us to get a “W” before we left on Day 1.”
Camden Bolane was one of the key pieces for Wave as they used a dominant middle attack that really took off in set two. With clean ball control, setter Amanda Saeger was able to run a well balanced offense and let her middles go to work where they could hit their angles leaving NKYVC playing out of system most of this match.
Bolane talked about how the team had to rally around each other being short handed and wanted to play for their teammates who could not be on the court.
“We’ve unfortunately lost some key players even before this tournament including this morning. We wanted to play for them today and really give it our all heading into this match.”
Wave dropped their first two matches of the day to A5 Mizuno 16 Gabe and KC Power 16-1, both going 0-2 and to pick up a win looked to be a difficult task for this group with NKYVC being a heavy favorite in the tournament and 2-0 so far on the day.
“We really had nothing to lose coming in here. We aren’t the highest ranked team, we weren’t playing as well but we wanted to give it our all and build some momentum to close out the day and into the rest of the tournament,” said Bolane.
Wave can carry that momentum into day two where it is still wide open. Teams will be jockeying for seeding heading into bracket play which will begin at the enof Sunday’s session. The only undefeated teams in out of the power pools after day one are A5 16 Mizuno Gabe, Milwaukee Sting 16 Gold, and Momentous VBC 16 Dan.
“We’re going to serve tougher, handle the first contact, and there’s nothing to lose at this point. We need to play as hard as we can right now and compete every single point. Single elimination format always makes things a little bit interesting,” said Dean.
For all of these athletes in the Class of 2024 (16s age group), this is their first true opening of recruiting weekend with last year’s President Day Tournaments being a quiet period for Division 1 coaches. We’re now back to what feels like a normal recruiting period with a big time Presidents Day event filled with high caliber teams and the top coaches in the country on the sidelines. Bolane definitely spoke with a spark with the joy she has playing in this atmosphere with her team as well as seeing friends she’s made through volleyball from across the country.
@WAVEVolleyball 16 Brennan dominant, lot of power from the middle to defeat @NKYVC 2-0 in 16s power pool @TCVolleyballNIT – full story to follow. pic.twitter.com/aCS4bSZHNU
— Chris Fitzgerald (@PrepDigChris) February 19, 2022
“I have missed this so much. I love seeing so many people from all of these different states! I have friends from across the country, it’s amazing to be back.”
“Separation Sunday” begins tomorrow where the Power Pool teams will play challenge matches against teams outside of the power pool who finished first in their pool.