Area spikers shine in Florida
Published 11:51 pm Wednesday, July 26, 2006
By Staff
EAST LANSING – Laura Youngquist (South Bend Clay) and Missy Cooper (Brandywine) competed in the US National High Performance Championships in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. for the Lakeshore Region Youth High Performance Team. The Lakeshore Region Youth Team finished the Tournament winning the Bronze Pool.
The USA Volleyball High Performance Program is the "pipeline" for young volleyball athletes who aspire to reach the elite level of their sport and who dream to one day represent the USA on the National Women’s Volleyball Team. The USA High Performance National Championships is a showcase event for the USA National Development program each year.
USA Volleyball runs and manages the USA National Men's and Women's Volleyball Teams, the USA Olympic Teams. The USA Youth and Junior National Teams, along with a number of tiered camps and programs fall under the USA Volleyball High Performance Program.
Each Region of USA Volleyball has the option of operating a "regional arm" of the National High Performance Program. This year Lakeshore Region (Michigan) held Tryouts March 19 and selected 24 players to attend both the Select and Youth Camps at Michigan State University July 11-13. From these camps, 12 players were selected for each team to represent the Lakeshore Region at the High Performance Championships in Ft. Lauderdale July 18-22.
The Lakeshore Region Coaches this year included Dave Schmidlin, Head Coach from Oakland University as the Head Coach of the Lakeshore Youth Region Team and Gregg Whitis, Assistant Coach at the University of Michigan to be the Head Coach of the Lakeshore Region Select Team.
Laura Youngquist, Midwest Juniors and Clay High School, played as an outside hitter for the Lakeshore Youth Team, and Missy Cooper, Krush Volleyball Club and Brandywine High School, played as the Libero for the team.
The Lakeshore Region Youth Team finished with a 4-4 record in Matches and a 14 wins and 12 losses record in games.
On Wednesday, Lakeshore lost in three to Carolina and lost in three to North Texas.
On Thursday, Lakeshore beat New England in three and fell to Sun Country (West Texas/New Mexico) in three.
Friday saw Lakeshore defeat Iowa in three and lose in the Seeding round to Carolina two games to three.
On Saturday, Lakeshore Defeated Chesapeake in three to advance to the Bronze Championships. In the final game, Lakeshore defeated Iowa 25-14, 25-16, 25-23. The winner of the Gold Pool was Northern California and the winner of the silver pool was Ohio Valley.
In the Select division, the Lakeshore Region ended with a three win four losses Match Record and a 12 wins and 14 loss game record.
On Wednesday, Lakeshore Select defeated Carolina 3-1 and fell to Lone Star (South Texas) 3-1.
On Thursday, Lakeshore Select lost to Aloha (Hawaii) in three and won in three against Garden Empire (New Jersey/New York).
On Friday, Lakeshore Select beat Northern California in three and fell to Florida 3-1. On Saturday, Lakeshore Select lost in medal round against Great Lakes 25-8, 25 -14, 20-25 and 25-22.