Austin Juniors 18 Navy finishes as the top-ranked team in the state. Kneeling, from left, are: Lauren Galler (Leander), Avery Dunn (Austin), Amy Meyer (Hays) Lindsey Pickens (Hays), Meredith Hasson (Westlake). Standing, from left, are: Sally Tan, Jason Landers, Myanna Hellsten (St. Michael's), Natalie Barba (Westwood), Stefanie Miksch (Bowie), Shari Hicks (Round Rock), Christi Hahn (Leander), Denver Lee, Glen Lietzke. Not Pictured: Liz Williamson (St. Stephen's)

THE BEST OF TEXAS

Final Club Rankings

May 8 — As they walked off the court in January having just been pounded by North Dallas at the Tour of Texas Qualifier, Austin Juniors didn’t exactly have the look of a champion.

“We were really disappointed because we knew we didn’t play well,” says Jason Landers, who coaches the team with Glen Lietzke. “But the girls knew what they had to work on and they worked hard.”

Five months later that work obviously paid off as Austin Juniors clearly established itself as the best team in Texas. Austin breezed through the Tour of Texas regular schedule then finished third at the Lone Star Classic to earn an Open berth at the national championships. They also are the #1 team in our final ranking of the top teams in Texas.

“It was a team effort,” said Landers. “It’s really amazing how every kid on this team has stepped up throughout the year and played big when we needed it. We’ve played people at different positions, we’ve made substitutions when someone wasn’t playing well and whoever we’ve turned to has been up to the challenge.”

Landers says the key to the season, however, may have been a decision made in Las Vegas.

“The turning point probably came in Vegas after we lost a big match to High Country,” said Landers. “After the loss we decided to go from a 6-2 to a 5-1. It wasn’t that one setter was necessarily better than the other, but we just wanted to get more consistency. When you run a 6-2, sometimes you don’t have as much consistency and it can be tough on the hitters."

Whatever the reason, it worked. “We lost some big matches nationally, but we won some big matches, too,” said Landers. And by the end of the season Austin Juniors had earned the title of The Best Team in Texas. Here are the final rankings.

While most of the teams ranked at the top of our pre-season poll finished near the top, there were some surprises. Dallas Skyline, a team that chose to play three qualifiers instead of the Tour, overcame an early season stumble to East Texas (a team they later beat twice) to established itself among the state’s elite by knocking off Alamo a few weeks ago and sweeping North Dallas to win the North Texas regional qualifier. Team Texas, the all-star team, proved capable of competing with the nation's best. An injury to All-America OH Marcie Hampton on Saturday at the Lone Star Classic qualifier brought the team's chase for an Open berth to an early end. Rumor has it, however, that the team will have an adequate replacement for post-season play in All-America Amber McCray, whose season with East Texas is over.

The middle of the rankings presented one of those interesting challenges. Austin Juniors Red finished the season strong and proved its strength with a second place finish at its regional qualifier last weekend. That followed a third place finish in Club at the Lone Star national qualifier. Austin had advanced to the semifinals of Lone Star by beating Crown of Texas before it was eliminated by El Paso Wildfire. Last weekend Crown of Texas knocked off Wildfire at the Sun Country regional qualifier, so we ended up with the dreaded situation where three evenly matched teams all beat each other. In this case we’re giving the edge to Austin but only slightly.

Among those teams missing from the final rankings that were in the pre-season rankings are Amarillo, East Texas and Block Party. Unranked teams who finished among the state elite include Austin Red, El Paso Wildfire and Club Texas.

This was easily the most competitive of the three oldest divisions all season long. That s why it is no surprise that the Lone Star State will send four teams to nationals in the Open division and seven more in Club. Texas Tornados, which held the top spot for much of the season, finally established themselves at the top of the rankings despite repeated challenges from Centex, Austin, AMV, Willowbrook, Skyline and others.

For several years club observers have looked at this group as one of the strongest on the way up. These teams, coupled with dozens of talented underclassmen who are playing up, give an indication of just how powerful next year’s 18s division should be.

Pre-season ranked teams missing from the final rankings include High Plains, Block Party, Dallas Summit and River City. Teams unranked at the start of the season who are in our final rankings include Hit-Away, Houston Juniors, Club Texas and Austin Red.

Over the course of the season two teams, Texas Advantage and Austin Juniors, clearly separated themselves from the rest of the pack. So it was only fitting that the two teams met in the finals of the Lone Star Classic. Unfortunately, as often happens when there is a big buildup, the match turned out to be a one-sided win for Austin. As a result TAV, despite an impressive first and two second place finishes in three national qualifiers, falls from the top spot for the first time this season. The teams may get another chance to go at each other in Atlanta were both should be in the medal hunt on the final day.

Ranking the rest of the 16s was a challenge. Since the last rankings, any of those teams ranked from #3 down have proven capable of beating each other. But we’re not one to back down from a challenge and after a dizzying task of comparing results and head-to-heads, we’ve found a spot for them all.

Texas Power proved that it’s not where you start, but where you end up that counts and was the only team not in the first rankings who made the final list. Dallas Summit dropped out.