Mountain Pointe’s girls volleyball team came home from the Nike Tournament of Champions last weekend with more than the Silver Division trophy.
The Pride picked up some valuable experience playing against some of the best teams in the western United States for three days.
“We need to get as much experience as possible because we’re making little mistakes,” Mountain Pointe head coach Fred Mann said. “We feel like we should be farther along than we are.”
Desert Vista won the overall championship, beating Clovis West from California, 25-19, 26-24.
“Desert Vista is pretty consistent and they don’t make many mistakes,” Mann added. “They’re a mature team and they’re doing well.”
The Pride lost to rival Desert Vista and Chandler in the early rounds of the tournament, putting them in the Silver Division.
“We had a good run at the end, but we lost to Desert Vista, (12-25, 16-25) and Chandler (25-20, 22-25, 11-15) and we don’t feel good about that,” Mann said.
“We might have won the while thing if we had won a couple of those matches,” he added, “but we did win the silver division and we feel good about that.”
After the loss to Desert Vista the Pride made a run at the end beating Gilbert Highland, Gilbert Mesquite, Tucson Sabino and Chandler Hamilton, each in three games.
Although the tournament was not included in the Arizona Interscholastic Association Power Rating system, the unbeaten Thunder (5-0) are ranked No. 2 in the state, fractions of a point behind Phoenix Xavier. Mountain Pointe is 4-1 and rated ninth among the top 16 teams that will go to the state playoffs in November.
