Archive for category: Club News

Due to the overwhelming response last night for our first Open Gym Session for 15s-18s, we are moving the Open Gym Sessions scheduled for this Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 12 & Nov. 13) to St. Louis Sports Center, located at 6727 Langley Ave., St. Louis, MO  63132.  The time remains the same (6:30 – 9:30 p.m.).  The move will allow for us to have four full courts!  Click here for directions.

This Thursday’s session (Nov. 10) will remain at Ritenour at the scheduled time.

Thanks for your overwhelming support!

Open gym 15’s-18’s

Tues., Nov. 8 from 7pm-9:30pm at Ritenour High School

Thurs., Nov. 10 from 7pm-9:30pm at Ritenour High School

Sat., Nov. 12 from 6:30pm- 9:30pm at St. Louis Sports Center  NEW LOCATION!!

Sun., Nov. 13 from 6:30pm-9:30pm at St. Louis Sports Center  NEW LOCATION!!

Tues., Nov. 15 from7pm-9:30pm at Ritenour High School

Thurs., Nov. 17 from 7pm-9:30pm at Ritenour High School

 Price $10 per session or $25 for all 6 sessions. Click here register for open gym sessions.

Tryouts 15’s-18’s

15’s Friday Nov 18th from 7pm-9pm at Ritenour High School

16’s Saturday Nov 19th 11am-1:30pm at Ritenour High School

17’s Saturday Nov 19th 4pm-6:30pm at Whitfield High School

18’s Saturday Nov 19th 8am-10:30am at Ritenour High School

Price $20 per athlete. Click here to pre-register for try-outs.  Download Gateway’s registration & waiver form and bring to tryouts.

St. Louis, Mo. — Rose Obunaga, a member of the Kenya National Volleyball Team at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games has joined the coaching staff of H2 Saint Louis  as head coach of its 17 Cardinal (Open) team for the 2011-2012 season.

Obunaga first made the Kenya National Team in the mid-90’s, and was named most valuable player at the 1997 and 1999 All-African Games.  Her first Olympic Games appearance was in 2000 in Sydney, and she competed again for Kenya at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.  She was a first team NJCAA All-American at Southwest Missouri State University-West Plains in 2002 and 2003, and in 2005 was chosen as an NAIA first team Nationals All-American at Columbia College in Missouri.

Since graduation in 2006, with a degree in business administration, Obunaga served as assistant coach at Columbia College, club coach in Columbia, Mo. and Evansville, Ill., graduate assistant at the University of Evansville, and presently coaches middle hitters at Washington University in Saint Louis.

“I love that fact that Rose lends a depth of knowledge to all of our players in that she is one of the few folks in town with big time, big game experience at the highest levels of volleyball,” said Assistant Club Director, Michael Loyd.  “She combines her ability with a heart as big as a lion.” 

“If I can help just one girl each year to reach her potential, and get the opportunities that I have been afforded, then my efforts will be worthwhile,” stated Obunaga.

“It’s very rare that a young athlete gets an opportunity to play for someone with this much talent and ability on the court, and such a humble spirit off the court.  H2 Saint Louis is extremely fortunate to have her with us this year,” said Loyd.”

H2 Volleyball’s Jaden McBride is ready to return to the court.  Are YOU ready? 

Join us this weekend for the start of our open gyms beginning with 11’s-14’s. 

Open gym 11’s-14’s

Sun Oct 9^th 5:30pm-8:00pm at North County Recreation Center

Sat Oct 15^th 6:30pm-9:30pm at JCCA (St Louis Jewish Community Center, 2 Millstone Campus Dr., St. Louis, Mo  63146)

Sun Oct 16^th 6:30pm-9:30 pm at JCCA (St Louis Jewish Community Center, 2 Millstone Campus Dr., St. Louis, Mo  63146)

Tues Oct 18^th 7:00pm-9:30pm at JCCA (St Louis Jewish Community Center, 2 Millstone Campus Dr., St. Louis, Mo  63146)

Price $10 per session or $25 for all 4 sessions.  Click here register for open gym sessions.

Tryouts 11’s-14’s

14’s Sat Oct 22nd 8am-10am at Whitfield High School

13’s Sat Oct 22nd 11am-1pm at Whitfield High School

12’s Sat Oct 22nd 2pm-4pm Whitfield High School Big Gym

We won’t be able to offer an 11’s team.  We are very sorry for the inconvenience!

Price $20 per athlete.  Click here to pre-register for try-outs.  Download Gateway’s registration & waiver form and bring to tryouts.

With high school volleyball starting this week in full swing, many H2 faces can be found competing on the court. 42 of our incoming Freshmen and Sophomore girls made their high school teams. 20 of those 42 made their Varsity squad. 12 made Junior Varsity and 10 made their Freshmen squad. What an accomplishment! Leading the pack is Incarnate Word Academy with 9 of our H2 girls representing their teams this year. Congratulations ladies! H2 is proud of you all.

The 17 Cardinal team traveled to Chicago, Ill. over the weekend to compete in the ASICS CHAMPIONSHIPS held at the Navy Pier.  On day one Cardinal went undefeated playing three teams from Colorado and Illinois.  The morning of day two started with some site seeing along the pier and a ferris wheel ride for the team.  After lunch at the Billy Goat the girls played in the afternoon against teams from Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois.   Day two ended with the same success, an undefeated record advancing them to the gold division!  On day three, after being defeated by the #1 ranked team in the tournament, Cardinal finished the tournament with an overall 5^th place finish in gold.   Great job 17 Cardinal…..What an awesome season you girls have had!

The 2^nd Annual H2 Saint Louis Formal Banquet was held on Thursday June 2nd at Glen Echo Country Club to commemorate the club’s successful 2011 season and say a final goodbye to fellow teammates.   We doubled last year’s attendance with 200 members joining in the celebration that kicked off with a club picture, a fantastic video presentation by Geoff Davis that not only showed the hard work of our players but the humor in every situation and ended with dancing provided by our fabulous DJ Terre LeGrande.

We were honored with a speech on the importance of Teamwork by Kent Miller, Head Coach SLU Billikens Women’s Volleyball.  Kent spoke of the comrade that exists between each player on an individual team and on the importance of teamwork to a team’s success.  He also stated that in no other sport can you see a team coming together and relying on each other than in volleyball since every player on the court is an important piece in achieving set goals.  He was very grateful for the opportunity to speak to the girls.  We thank him for making time to attend.

A great time was had by all that attended and special thanks go out to all the players, parents, coaches, assistant coaches, Ken Kellerhals, president of Bissenger’s Chocolates for the fabulous custom H2 chocolate bars, and the banquet committee, Kim Brown, Lynn Brown, Geoff Davis, Roni Jackson, Terre LeGrande, De’Shea Mcbride and Glen Echo Country Club for making this event a huge success.

Good luck to our seniors in their future endeavors and hopefully we will see everyone next season.

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Ranked 7^th and 8^th respectively in the region for most of the year, the final shot for a national bid came down between H2’s 18 Cardinal and 18 Black. Both teams came out swinging, but Cardinal prevailed in a two game set to secure a bid to this years JO’s in Atlanta, Ga.

I want to personally congratulate all the players that worked so incredibly hard all season long to make this journey possible.  It has been such a privilege to watch each of them grow and mature. We look forward to a great showing at Nationals and a great start to your college volleyball careers!

Coach Geoff

H2 17 White had an outstanding day of volleyball on Saturday going undefeated through pool play.

They advanced to the Bronze bracket and started Sunday strong, defeating the St. Charles Stars in the first match of the day.

The team went on to defeat Mid State Force in two games.  Still undefeated, H2 17 White met Mid State Force again for the Championship match.

They fought a hard battle and finished the day in second place.

After a tough weekend in Atlanta and a 9th place finish at the Mid East Qualifier, 15 Cardinal is looking better than ever. This past weekend 15 Cardinal brought home first place medals from the 16s Jaguar Classic at Fort Zumwalt West. The Cardinal went 11-1 on the day. “All players played great and everyone did their part, Rose really found a great rhythm today and was pounding the ball,” Coach Loyd said after the win.

Coach Tracie Casey and the H2 14 Crush girls brought their great spirit and winning ways to the final H2 Saint Louis Governors Classic Tournament this season and claimed 1st place in the gold division!

Nice job ladies against some very strong competition!

H2 Saint Louis 14 White took second place at the SEMO II tournament on March 27.  The parents fought through the snow storm (and closed highway) to get to the tournament and our players fought to the end of each match to play their way into the finals.  The girls never gave up, coming back from a seven point deficit in the semifinals to make their way to the championship match.

Please help us congratulate Carl and the players of 15 Black as they finish 20-0 over the past two weekends!  Way to go girls!

 Sunday the 17 Cardinal team traveled to the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau, MO.  After finishing 1st in pool play the Cardinal team went on to finish the day undefeated, taking home 1st place medals!   “Our six rotation player, whom is also our captain, was out with an injury and one of our middles had to leave early but everyone stepped up and played where they were asked and did an awesome job.  I was extremely proud of them all” said Coach McBride.  The final was played against Cape Force with 17 Cardinal winning both sets 25-21 and 25-11.  17 Cardinal’s next tournament will be this Sunday March 6th at Mineral Area College.

18 CARDINAL CELEBRATES AFTER ONE OF MANY WINS ON THE WEEKEND. The 18 Cardinal led the way with a 5th place finish (48 teams) in the gold division this weekend in Omaha!

Eight H2 teams traveled to OMAHA this weekend to participate in the Presidents day tournament sponsored by Asics and Nebraska Elite Volleyball Club.

The Weekend was highlighted by some great volleyball and was capped off by Mary Columbo  (18 Black) signing her letter of intent to attend  and play volleyball at Avila Catholic College in Kansas City, as many of her H2 Family looked on and cheered her accomplishments.

Results are in and H2 STL 18 Cardinal finish atop all teams participating with a top 10 Finish in 18 Gold Club bracket.

I am so incredibly proud of how all of our girls represented our St Louis Community, our Gateway Region and just as importantly, our H2 Family.  All over the gym we continued to advance our program with fundamentally sound volleyball and great team bonding and unity of mission.

On the journey home, after a brief nap in the passenger seat, I awoke to what could only be described as one of the most beautiful, clear skies that I have ever seen. Stars shimmered with a beautiful light and it reaffirmed my belief that great things will continue to happen for our entire H2 Family, thru HIM, as long as we keep looking up!

OMAHA PRESIDENTS DAY TOURNAMENT

KANSAS CITY PRESIDENTS DAY TOURNAMENT

H2 15 Cardinal sports the medal they won this weekend.

H2 Saint Louis 15 Cardinal has been heating up some gyms in the last few weeks. They have medaled the past three consecutive weekends. 15 Cardinal competed in the Gateway Region Girls Festival this weekend. The Cardinal was ranked second overall only behind SWIL Smack.  Cardinal had the first seed in their pool going into pool play. On Saturday they defeated Gemini and Midwest Explosion. 

That afternoon 15 Cardinal was re-pooled where they still had a number one seed. The Cardinal fought off a tough Rockwood team (142) and blasted Inferno. Sunday morning pool play resumed followed by playoffs. 15 cardinal had to play TESL (Black) for the first game of the morning(last pool play match). This game would go 3 sets and H2 would eventually win. The next match of the day was against a tough SWIL smack team. H2 15 Cardinal would sweep them to make it to the championship where they would lose two very close games to the SWIL black team. The ladies fought hard and played great volleyball all weekend. “We are close, so close, to where we would like to be. Tough loses like this teach us that we still have work to do. We are almost where we want to be. When we get there watch out!” said Head Coach Michael Loyd after the loss to SWIL. H2 Saint Louis 15 Cardinal will head to Omaha to compete in the Asics Presidents Day classic this coming weekend with five other H2 Saint Louis teams.