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Lone Star Wrap - Remember Alamo? They're Back.

The Faces of Lone Star: Above: Justina Begemann, who plays for MAVS 181, loves her brother Chris Coleman, even when he's having a really bad hair day. Below: Randy Lazar, whose daughter Chelsea plays for Tampa Bay 18s, shaves, I mean shows, his team spirit.

From the start of the weekend, coaches and recruiters were marveling at the depth of talent in the 16s Open division at this year's Mizuno Lone Star Classic qualifier.

How deep? Of the 25 teams entered in the field, six had already qualified for this summer's JOs in Open. And none of those teams was seeded No. 1 in the tournament. That position went to defending national champion Alamo, which was still trying to win an Open invitation.

By Sunday afternoon only one of the six previously qualified teams, Texas Tornados, had advanced to the Gold brackets, resulting in three more teams earning Open bids. That means that nine of the 25 teams competing were Open caliber.

"Brutal," is how Texas Advantage coach Jason Nicholson described the field. TAV beat eventual champion Alamo in pool play but didn't even make it to the final four.

Of course much of the attention (sometimes three to four people deep) focused on whether Alamo would qualify. Ironically their Gold pool included two teams that had already qualified - TAV and Willowbrook - and two that hadn't - Skyline and Alamo. The two that hadn't qualified ended up earning bids. The two that had qualified didn’t get out of the pool.

That set up yet another battle between Alamo and Texas Tornados for the tournament championship. The two had finished 1-2 on the Tour of Texas with Alamo winning all three Tour meetings between the teams.

After taking the first game 25-20 it looked as if Alamo had things well under control and would earn their bid. Katie Sanders, Bridget Laplante and Carrie Gurnell had a different idea. The Tornados’ big three threw up a wall of blocks against Alamo’s big hitters and took turns on the attack as the Tornados pulled out to a 20-14 lead. It wasn’t all offense, however. Libero Jennifer Harell was flying all over the place and at one point Laplante took back-to-back rifle shots from Alamo’s Jenny Banse and sent them right back. Alamo rallied to tie the score at 22-22 behind a flurry of Mary Batis and Sarah Harris kills, but the Tornados responded with three straight to force game three.

The Tornados jumped out to quick 7-3 lead before Jessica Glover, Banse and Batis scored three straight to cut the lead to one. The Tornados responded to move out to a 10-7 advantage before two Batis kills and a Sam Dabbs ace finally brought Alamo even. After the teams traded points to 11-11, lefty Megan McDougall and Celena Rendon took over as Alamo ripped off four straight points. Just like that, Alamo had the championship trophy to go with its bid.

Still, Tornados coach Colby Lemmons was proud of his team.

“My team has far exceeded everyone's expectations,” he said. “We began the season knowing the difference between Alamo and our team last year was their defense. We have spent a lot of time on it and it has paid off.”

“Our blocking and floor defense has improved nine hundred percent,” he continued. “All weekend opposing coaches were complimenting me on my team's defense. That's when you know you are starting to attain your goal - when your previous weakness is now your featured attraction.”

Lemmons was especially pleased with the steady play of setters Courtnee Rhodes and Maddie Beebe as well as his back row specialists, Minella Quarto and Harrell.

“They kept us alive all weekend with their great passing and inspired defense,” he said.

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For Alamo, it was the perfect end to what has been -- at times -- a very trying season.

"We've had so much change this year, and these ladies have accepted the challenge," said coach Keith Wilson, who had Dabbs playing the entire court for the first time all season, which allowed him to move Stephanie Cadavid back to libero.

"We only had a couple of practices with the new lineup, and all of the players made the adjustments,” he said.

After a loss to Texas Advantage in pool play, Alamo faced the very real possibility that they would not qualify at Lone Star and would have to hope for an at-large bid. They had to beat Willowbrook, a team that had already qualified, in the final pool match to qualify.

Was he worried?

“Yes and no,” he said. “We've beaten some very good teams and some very good teams have beaten us. We talked about how you can't commit so many errors against a very good team like TAV. They imposed their game plan on us and we didn't make adjustments. But once again, these young ladies accepted the challenge and pressure, and performed well with the must-win situation against Willowbrook.

“This qualifier was as tough as Crossroads and MEQ. And having six already-qualified teams in this tournament is impressive. But again, there is no other team I would take into battle,” Wilson said.

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The surprise team of the tournament had to be Houston Juniors 18’s, who finished fourth to earn an Open bid. It wasn’t an easy path, however. They finished third in their opening pool, which forced them to win a Challenge match to stay alive.

Things began to turn on Saturday when they finished second in their pool with wins over Centex and JJVA. Suddenly they found themselves playing in the Gold pools with a shot at qualifying. The tournament format had each team playing one match on Saturday night and resuming play on Sunday. In their Saturday night match, Houston stunned Austin Juniors 25-18, 25-21. Suddenly, coach Vanessa Seghers was only a win away from qualifying.

“I couldn’t sleep Saturday night,” she said. “All I wanted to do was just get up Sunday morning and win a match or two and tell Stephanie Lust that she’s going to get to go to the national tournament.”

Lust is one of only two players left on the team who began their career with the Houston club (Kelly Stanton is the other) and she had never played for a team that qualified for nationals. The team also includes two players, Jessica Barrera and Lydia Adeosun, who had never played club before this season.

“The ride home was interesting,” Seghers said. “I think I was in shock and I think the kids were in shock. We were seeded fourth in every pool we played. I don’t think it really hit me until today (Monday).”

“I told the girls that for a whole lot of teams, this weekend was the end,” she said. “But for our team, it was the beginning.”

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The most disappointed team had to be Austin Juniors 18s, who came about as close as you can come to an Open bid without winning one. Austin had three match points at 14-11 on Sky High in their final match of Gold pool play. A win would throw the pool into a three-way tie for the two spots in the Gold brackets and an open berth. A loss and Austin would be left in the cold as Sky High and Houston Juniors advance.

The teams split games one and two, but in game three Austin had multiple match points at 14-11, but couldn’t close the deal.

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The second most disappointed team had to be El Paso Wildfire. With almost every player back from last year's 18s club finalist, Wildfire was one of the favorites to win the club bid. They went undefeated through two days of pool, including a 2-0 win over eventual finalist Diamondback. It was ruled that they had an uncertified coach on the bench during two matches while waiting for coach Jose Luis Chacon to fly in from Mexico, however, and the forfeits dropped them from first to last in their Saturday pool. They went on to blow through the bronze bracket to finish the weekend undefeated on the court but only 25th in actual standings.

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With their championship in 17s, Texas Advantage has now qualified in six straight qualifiers over the past two years.

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It’s time to take our medicine on the predictions. So how did they hold up?

18 Open - We predicted a Sky High-Tornados finals with Sky High winning it all. That prediction was looking pretty good until the Tornados stumbled against Tampa Bay 25-23, 27-25. Yahoo was one of our three spoilers, and they did better than that by winning the tournament. We had predicted that Texas Advantage (finished a disappointing 10th) and Tampa Bay (5th) would win trickle downs. They didn't. Houston Juniors completely caught us off guard, and we missed badly on another pick as a spoiler, JJVA, which finished 15th.

18 Club - Wildfire was our choice and although they beat eventual finalist Diamondback in pool play and had the look of a champion, the forfeits knocked them out. Tornados Dan, which we predicted could be headed to the finals, won the tournament. Of our other two favorites, TAV National finished 5th but North Dallas finished 26th.

17 Open - TAV, as predicted, qualified again. And, also as predicted, Austin Juniors won a bid. KIVA and Sky High, however, had meltdown weekends. Note: John Tawa was right on with his warning to watch out for Colorado Juniors (5th) and Cajunland (7th).

17 Club - We completely blew it in club where our “homer” picks of Willowbrook (9th) and Austin (5th) came up a little short. Champion Circle City wasn't even among our favorites. Our picks as teams that could be in the running on Sunday included runner up Texas Advantage as well as AIM Kaepa (third), Austin (5th), Texas Juniors DFW (5th), Willowbrook Select (9th) and Alamo (9th). Three we missed who turned in strong performances were Oklahoma Synergy (3rd), AMV (5th) and Texas Riptide (5th).

16 Open - We said this would be the weekend Alamo would deliver and they did. We also hit on Texas Tornados but missed on TAV (7th) and SPRI (9th). Two of our best bets for a trickle downs, Dallas Skyline and Austin Juniors, came through, while AIM Miguel (5th) came close. Gold Cal (23rd), Long Beach (18th) and High Plains (19th) did not.

16 Club – Bexar County, one of our favorites, won it all. South Shore, another favorite, lost to TAV National, yet another favorite, in the quarterfinals. We completely missed finalist Texas Image, which eliminated TAV National.