16 HighLine Team Recognized As Team To Watch By LonestarVB.com

While the top of the 17s and 18s rankings seems to have settled out, not so for the 16s. This is turning out to be the most entertaining age group of the three.
TAV Asics continues to be the team to beat, although it amost happened last weekend. It’s a team loaded with size, firepower, terrific setting and young players who exploded onto the high school playoff scene last fall.

Meanwhile, AVA Performance has been brutalizing a lot of older teams on the Tour and in local touraments. The only problem is that Texas Tornados Mizuno clocked them in the MEQ third place match a couple of weekends ago and it is the Tornados, and not AVA, that already has the Open bid. And that came after AVA swept a deep and talented Mad Frog team that had a strong second place showing in Omaha.

SSVBC won the second stop on the Tour despite losing in pool play to the Tornados, so they move into the #5 position.
The rise of the Tornados and SSVBC send Austin down a couple of positions. The AJs are hard to figure out. They went 0-4 at second stop on Tour but have traded wins with TTM.

Advanced VB Amarillo maintains its #7 position while TAV Molten, coming off a strong showing last weekend in which they pushed TAV Asics to the limit, moves into #8. That drops Skyline and Braggin Rights, coming off a first place finish at Houston Crosscourt, down a place.

Falling out of the ranking to make room for SSVBC and TAV Molten are Alamo Kaepa, PVP Plastic and El Paso Sunspots. But expect more turmoil among this age group over the next couple of months.

State tournament MVP Natalie Puckett (10), 6-1 Stephanie Holland (11) and 6-3 Whitney Little (8) have a lot to cheer about as TAV 16 Asics continues to roll on.

Best of Texas 16s
Rank Team Preview
1. Texas Advantage Asics 1
2. Texas Tornados Mizuno 6
3. AVA Performance 2
4. Mad Frog National 3
5. SSVBC National NR
6. Austin Juniors Mizuno 4
7. Advanced Volleyball Amarillo 7
8. Texas Advantage Molten NR
9. Skyline Roshambo 8
10. Braggin Rights 9

Teams To Watch
(Alphabetical order)
900 161
Alamo Kaepa
AJVC Asics
AP Black Mamba
Brazos Valley Mizuno
Dallas Premier Mizuno
El Paso Sunspots
Houston Juniors National
Impact Highline
Midland VBC
SA Heat
Southwest Asics
Tejas Kaepa
Texas Team Gold
Texas Tornados Black
TRV Elite
Victory Elite
Woodlands Wave Black

March 17, 2009