Columbia 17-Black qualifies into Bronze at CEVA Power League
- Details
- Category: 2017 Results
- Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2017 10:43
After a weather filled start to the 2017 Power League season, it was Columbia 17-Black that opened Columbia's 2017 season. The Columbia ladies lost only to the number one team in their pool (now the #5 team overall and top team in the Gold Division) in an extra points thriller enroute to a three way tie for first in their pool. Unfortunately, the tie-break rules moved Columbia to the bottom half of their qualifier bracket. That was enough to push them into the Bronze Division bracket despite their winning record for the day. They also kept their top five status among U-17 teams in CEVA Power League. These ladies will get the chance to climb into Silver in February, and we are willing to bet that is just what happens. Go get them ladies!
Columbia 17-Black scores: lost to Adidas NW 18-1 Matt (#5 overall) 12-25, 24-26; defeated Webfoot 18-2 Silver 14-25, 25-20, 15-13; defeated Portland 18-2 Gold (#13 overall) 20-25, 25-19, 15-10; lost to OJVA 18-2 Blue 23-25, 25-11, 9-15; defeated Agape 18-1 National 25-20, 25-19. (3-2, 7-6) - Bronze Qualifiers
With two of our three Columbia teams winning divsion championships, it was still possibly Columbia 16-Red that had the most to be proud of this past weekend. The ladies of Columbia 16-Red were seeded into division two (just like 17-Black, they had no path to the Gold bracket), and started the tournament short a player who couldn't make the trip. Despite the handicaps, and again just like 17-Black, the 16-Red ladies rolled thru Saturday undefeated. They followed that performance by winning two of three matches on Sunday, and vaulted themselves right past their sister 16-Black team to 45th place overall in a 128 team field. A quarterfinal loss on Monday was only their second loss of the tournament. Congratulations ladies, keep it rolling!
is the youngest of the three teams we sent to the Hartner Memorial. Starting in division one, they had to fight the first day to show they belonged there. Fight they did, and held onto their first division status for day two. On Sunday, they pulled out two tie-breaker victories to tie for first place in their pool. Those same tie-breakers pushed them to third on set percentage and cost them their shot at the Gold bracket. When two players went down with food poisoning for Monday's bracket play, things began to look dire. With their backs against the wall, 16-Black rallied together and attacked the competition, sweeping their quarterfinal, pulling out yet another tie-break victory in the semifinal, and then overpowering their opponent in the Silver C Division Championship to claim their title. Way to go ladies!
It's a good lesson for all of our teams about how every point matters. These ladies pulled off an amazing finish for their tournament championship, and a few more points in the middle of day two would have put them right into the Gold division as well. Fight for every point regardless of whether you are winning or losing a game. Those points matter.
Columbia had lots of action this past weekend, let's start with... Columbia 17-Black put on quite a performance at the Hartner Memorial Classic at the University of Oregon. The ladies of 17-Black had a 13-2, 13-4 record over the three day tournament, and had the second highest points ratio (an impressive 1.4188) in the entire field. They went undefeated on day one to vault from division two to division one status, and finished by winning the 18-Open Silver C Division Championship. Great work ladies!
A note here about big tournament seedings: Because they were seeded into division two at the start, 17-Black had no path to the Gold brackets and Silver was their highest possible outcome. Every tournament format is different, and sometimes seeding at the start can affect a team's final finish. (It did in this case, and 17-Black probably would have finished even higher than their final 43rd of 104 teams.)