Nebraska Bid Tracker: Premier 18 Gold Triumphs at KC MLK
We’re already punching tickets to GJNC. It won’t surprise many to see which Nebraska team has become the first to lock in its postseason fate. Premier Nebraska 18 Gold was a championship frontrunner as 17s last year. Now, this group…
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Continue ReadingWe’re already punching tickets to GJNC.
It won’t surprise many to see which Nebraska team has become the first to lock in its postseason fate. Premier Nebraska 18 Gold was a championship frontrunner as 17s last year. Now, this group will have one last shot at a title in the 18 Open division at April’s GJNC in Columbus.
18 Gold’s bid was just locked in with a second-place finish at the MLK Qualifier Tournament in Kansas City. As we mentioned in our event primer, this venue featured some of the fiercest 18 Open competitors in the Midwest, and the results here are a testament to 18 Gold’s continued success at the highest level of club volleyball.
Here’s a look at how it all went down as Premier Nebraska 18 Gold became the first team from the Great Plains Region to be added to our ongoing Nebraska bid tracker.
The Journey
We could tell right away that Premier 18 Gold was dialed in for this tournament.
Because Premier was in a three-team pool, matches in the opening round of the KC MLK Qualifier were played in a best-of-five format. The potential was there for some unusually long club matches, but 18 Gold didn’t need extra sets to take down Dynasty and Front Range when play began Saturday. Two consecutive sweeps had Premier Nebraska firmly in the Gold running heading into Day 2.
And the momentum just kept escalating on Sunday as Premier’s competition got even tougher. 18 Gold’s second-round pool featured two of last year’s NLQ Gold pool contenders in 17 Open. MAVS KC 18-1 represented the home fans in the venue, while OT 18 J John made the trip from Florida after constantly impressing us in 2022.
Despite the stacked pool, 18 Gold rolled to another unblemished record against MAVS KC, OTVA, and Academy. Though MAVS and Academy managed to force a deciding third, Premier Nebraska showed many of the clutch moments we had seen from this group in last year’s early-season qualifiers.
From there, it was on to the final group to decide bids. Premier Nebraska got its first taste of significant adversity in the first match of Monday’s Gold pools, as MAVS KC got revenge for Round 2 with a two-set win.
Luckily for Premier, the bid hunt was not over. The actual test of this team’s resolve came after the MAVS loss and an opening-set loss in the next Gold match against KC Power 18 Black. 18 Gold showed its championship experience by rallying to defeat KC Power in three, setting up a huge bid-deciding clash against MN Select.
While we’re talking about matchup memories from last year, how about Premier Nebraska versus MN Select? This takes me right back to the 17 Open championship match of last year’s Show Me Qualifier, where Premier defended its streak of zero set losses at the event to down MN Select for the title.
The result was the same in the 18s reprise. A monumental 27-25 win in the first set helped set the stage for another Premier Nebraska sweep and a 2-1 record in the event’s final pool. Because Monday’s Gold pool devolved into serious parity and no team went undefeated or winless, that 2-1 record was all that was needed to send Premier Nebraska back to 18s GJNC in 18 Open.
It will be a fitting conclusion to what has been a long run of championships for this squad.
The Tracker
This will be a season-long series where we compile a list of Nebraska teams qualified for GJNC. We now have our first entry on the board.
18 Open
Premier Nebraska 18 Gold