Bid-ness Report: Who Took Home Bids at Northern Lights Qualifier?
Be sure to follow @lshotvb on Instagram, Tik Tok and Twitter for all things volleyball! – And like that, the first half of the 2024 Northern Lights Qualifier has come to a close. With the 15, 17, and 18s age groups all in Minneapolis this weekend, we…
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And like that, the first half of the 2024 Northern Lights Qualifier has come to a close.
With the 15, 17, and 18s age groups all in Minneapolis this weekend, we got to see a lot of great competition. For the 18s, the field had started taking place a few weeks ago. And things started to become much clearer after today. For the 17s and 15s, this was the first qualifier for any team. No bids earned yet, so we saw the first tickets to Las Vegas be handed out today.
In the 18s Open, A5 Marc, MKE Sting 18 Gold and MN Select 18-1 punched their tickets. The 17 Open saw Houston Skyline win the division followed by ID CRUSH and MKE Sting earning bids. And finally, 15 Open saw Nebraska Elite make a huge comeback performance to win the qualifier and Houston Skyline and Kairos also grabbed their bid for later this Summer.
18 Open
Much like we talked in the Bid-Ness Report after Day 2, the 18 Open had a nice trickle down for whoever made the gold pool. With Nebraska Premier and KC Power already having bids, this allowed MKE Sting and A5 to secure their bids early on. The real question came with who was going to take the third bid? This came down to the shakings of the Silver bracket.
It was a brawl for that third and final bid at NLQ. FC Elite clawed their way to the final after a three set decision over Pohaku in the opener. MN Select seemed to have done pretty easy business with straight 25-18 set games against VC United. The championship of silver would go down to the wire. After FC Elite took the first by a 23-25 decision, MN Select would answer back in a big way to take set 2, 25-22. The third set would see Select roll on their momentum and take the match, and bid, with a 15-11 decision.
17 Open
The 17 Open race for a bid was a brutal one! 1st Alliance had been cruising throughout the weekend. Not only did I anticipate this team to punch their ticket to Las Vegas today, but I figured that they may very well win the whole thing! In the very opening match of the day, Houston Skyline would shock the titans of Alliance with a straight set victory. After that opening match win, Skyline would just run away with the momentum. They went on to take down Club V in sweeps before taking MKE Sting and ID CRUSH for the Northern Lights Qualifier Championship.
1st Alliance wasn’t the only undefeated team to lose out on the bid this weekend. In the other pools, both Michigan Elite and Nebraska ONE were knocked by losing both of their pool matches today. While MKE Sting lost in the opening rounds of the gold bracket, they’d rebound nicely to take third place, earning the final bid.
15 Open
In 15 Open, it was very similar to how the 17 Open was set up. With two gold pools, whoever won those pools would take a bid and battle it out for the championship. Whoever placed second in Gold Pool 1 would be honored the last bid and placed third. Both Nebraska Elite and Houston Skyline would take the wins in their respective pools. For Nebraska Elite, it was decided by the slimmest of margins. After PVA was swept by Kairos, Elite would pull the UNO Reverse card on PVA, ultimately knocking them out. Elite would go on to lose to a tough Kairos team in a three set brawl. Despite this loss, and now a 1-1 split across the field, Elite had won the set win/loss by winning 3. Kairos would place second and earn the third place bid for NLQ.
Nebraska Elite came into the 15 Open championship maybe a little beat up after the morning pool, but they weren’t to be count out. After a back and forth with Houston Skyline, Elite would come out on top. Swapping 25-22 matches, the third set would go to Elite with a 15-11 decision.