This weekend (2/20) the 18s Illini West team took on the PAO tourney at the Lamborghini Athletic Center. The team took a 5-1 match record this weekend. The one loss was our first game of the day against Missouri Fire, we were just not awake yet. We ended pool play with second place putting us in a tough situation going into bracket play.

As the coach my thoughts were “once we beat the number 3 ranked team, we will face the number one team, when we should see them in the championship match.” Well, something great played into our favor, the number four team from our pool ended up beating the number one team. This left us for a straight shot to the championship match.

We beat the number three team Adrenaline, then Net Force, putting us in the championship match along side Aces 17 Black, who we beat earlier in pool. The girls were beyond excited and played one of the cleanest games of volleyball I have seen them play so far, leaving us with 1st place and gold medals!