Columbia, SC club update

From Director Gwen Wilcher:

• All of our 12s and 13s girls made their middle school teams this season so hopefully they will be great starlings this upcoming club season.
• We sent our seniors off this year with one attending Claflin University, Orangeburg S.C. and Spartanburg Methodist, Spartanburg S.C. They both received volleyball scholarships.

Berea College scholarship opportunities

Conan Brooks, the new head volleyball coach for Berea College in Berea, KY, is recruiting. “Berea is a wonderful and diverse school on the foothills of Appalachia.  We are very well known for our history and our academics,” Brooks said in an email.

Once accepted, all Berea students are given a full scholarship, which also includes a laptop. In order to qualify, students must earn above a 20 on their ACT test, but they also need to earn about $48,000 or less for a family of four. “This could be a wonderul opportunity for students looking to go to college without the worry of tuition or student debt,” Brooks added.

For more information, visit http://berea.edu/ or contact Conan Brooks, Head Volleyball Coach at Berea College (brooksco@berea.edu)

Ridgecrest, CA club update

From Director David Cordes:

I am hip deep in the Middle School Season and having fun.  I have a really young (4 – 8th grade, 4 – 7th grade and 2- 6th grade players) 8th grade team, very inexperienced (no club players), very short team (tallest girl is 5’3″, half of them are under 5′ tall and 7 of the girls weigh less than 100 lbs).  We are going to get killed in some of our matches, but we are having a blast.  I am trying to turn them into a copy of some of the Tuba City teams I have seen at Nationals – not much offense but absolute monsters on defense.

But I am also ready for the club season to start.  I love these young beginners, but I really miss being able to talk, teach, practice and play volleyball offense, defense, strategy and more advanced skills with the older girls.  I have also been helping out part time with a small parochial high school team and every hour I spend on the court with those girls just makes me want the club season to start even earlier.

Brevard County club update

From Director Fred Howell:

As the year winds down, I just wanted to share some of our accomplishments with you. We won our fair share of local tournaments and did well in a number of the bigger ones. We played 10′s, 12′s, 14′s, 16′s, and 18′s. I did all the coaching but I did have help with some of the tournaments. The 12′s and 14′s played USAV and AAU and the rest played only local AAU tournaments. As always money was very tight but we made it through another regular season, played in a few local AAU beach tournaments, and the 12′s went to AAU nationals since we are so close to Orlando.

Our club has become a little more cosmopolitan and that has helped and hurt the direction I am trying to take the Brevard County Starlings. I am committed to preparing girls for college and believe that means providing the girls with life lessons as well as volleyball skills. You know what I mean.

I am maintaining positive relationships with the Florida USAV region office, Brevard Community College (local in our community), University of Central Florida (about 40 miles west of us), and Bethune Cookman University (about 70 miles north of us) for the last couple of years. Several of the high school coaches also work with me. As always I am stressing to the girls that the goal is to grow up to be a educated, responsible member of society. We want to make a Starlings difference.

BCSVS Tournament results

14′s 5th AAU Orlando Spring Fling

14′s 5th AAU FL regionals

14′s 6th FL USAV regionals club div

12′s 2nd USAV Disney classic

12′s 3rd AAU FL regionals

12′s 15th AAU nationals club

12′s 16th FL USAV regionals