Nebraska Teams Show Resilience in 2024 NIT Power Pools
Yesterday’s feature covered some of Nebraska’s top performers that started outside of NIT’s power pools. Now, let’s give a shoutout to the teams that took off from the top group. The Great Plains Region always sends a handful of teams…
Access all of Prep Dig
Continue reading this article and more.
Continue ReadingYesterday’s feature covered some of Nebraska’s top performers that started outside of NIT’s power pools. Now, let’s give a shoutout to the teams that took off from the top group.
The Great Plains Region always sends a handful of teams to Triple Crown’s coveted power pools, and 2024 was no exception. These Nebraska teams had the privilege of competing against the nation’s best while also knowing they had an assured spot in the challenger round. The competition was fierce, and a few squads found their groove in Kansas City.
Here’s a look at some of Nebraska’s best weekend performances among power pool teams.
Nebraska ONE 17 Synergy
2024 marked Nebraska ONE 17 Synergy’s second consecutive year in Triple Crown NIT power pools. This group has known what it’s like to be an underdog, a frontrunner, and everything in between. We just wrote another exciting chapter in Kansas City.
Synergy stormed out of the gates with a dominant win over Alamo. From there, Nebraska ONE ‘s dominance appeared to continue after rolling in the first set over MAVS KC. MAVS battled back, however, forcing a chaotic back-and-forth third set to decide the match. An 18-16 win for Nebraska ONE set up more drama in the coming days.
Despite a late-night defeat to MADFROG, Synergy separated itself as Power Pool D’s #1 team after some incredible parity. Nebraska ONE quickly dispatched NPJ Salem to reach the Round of 32 but was ousted in the top bracket by a talented Idaho Crush team.
Like yesterday’s discussion of Premier 15 Gold, we saw Nebraska ONE turn this setback into motivation to improve. Sunday’s slate finished with a three-set win over Seal Beach to move up in the Elite 17th-place bracket.
Monday gave us Synergy’s best. The quarterfinal round pitted Nebraska ONE against Northern Lights 17-1, an old foe that edged past Synergy at this year’s Northern Lights Qualifier. Vengeance was the storyline in the rematch as Nebraska ONE came back from a Set 1 defeat to win in three.
Synergy’s next win came against Dallas Skyline 17 Royal, which had earned the #1 seed in the original Elite bracket after a 3-0 start in power pools. One team was left on the slate: Surfside 17 Legends Lorianne, last year’s Triple Crown NIT champion. By this point, not even the defending champion could stop Synergy’s momentum as Nebraska ONE soared through the 17th-place bracket.
This late-tournament run is crucial as Nebraska ONE looks ahead to the bigger picture. An Open bid is still left to be claimed, and it might come at the same Kansas City venue later this year.
Premier Nebraska 16 Gold
Here’s a perfect example of how power pools allow teams to recalibrate.
Triple Crown NIT didn’t start the way Premier 16 Gold had hoped. The team dropped its three power pool matchups to physical teams from Club V, AVC CLE, and FORZA1 North. 16 Gold’s placement in the top group still meant that a challenger match was coming, so it was time to hit the ‘reset’ button.
That’s what happened as 16 Gold triumphed over a talented Adidas KIVA 16 Red team to make the Elite bracket. We’ve seen the high-end potential of this group, particularly as Premier earned a 15 Open bid in Kansas City last year. 16 Gold notched one more win against Colorado Juniors in the 17th-place group to close out NIT.
Time to bring that resilient attitude to the next big stage.
VCNebraska 15 Elite
We knew there was some buzz surrounding VCNebraska 15 Elite this year. The hype keeps escalating after last weekend’s performance.
15 Elite had a penchant for drama from the very beginning of NIT action. Two three-set wins over Top Select and Absolute immediately brought VCN’s 15s crew into the spotlight. The latter win was the ultimate display of resilience as 15 Elite rallied from a 25-11 Set 1 loss to win in the tiebreaker.
VCNebraska suffered a narrow power pool defeat to WPVC, the top seed in its Round 1 group. This set up a tough draw for VCN in the challenger round: Dynasty 15 Black, a Kansas City squad looking to defend home turf.
Cue up VCN’s best volleyball of the tournament. 15 Elite pushed past Dynasty to reach the Elite bracket. Even after dropping back-to-back matches to Houston Skyline and MADFROG, VCNebraska was not done making its mark on the NIT stage. The Lincoln team won the 25th-place bracket by defeating Austin Skyline, Kairos, and getting Round 1 revenge against WPVC.
We’re ready to see how this success translates to the qualifier grind.