2008 Articatz Autumn Classic.........

First and foremost, I wanted to thank the coaches, teams and helpers for making the 3rd annual Varsity Tournament a huge success.

I know our staff was worried about the tournament when I got the phone call from Bill Hill about the "W" closing. But thanks to the amazing support of the AD at Gwinn High School for allowing us to host the entire tournament at his facility.

With the outstanding guidance and help from two main individuals the tournament once again ran smoothly (Mike Morgan and Amber Bell). We also had great help from many parents and players to work the concessions and door.

This years Articatz "Autumn Classic" had 12 teams divided on two courts. We ran two 6 team pools. Pool play matches were 2 games to 21 points. With so many teams we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to get in as much competition in as possible.

We took the first two teams out of pool play to compete for the championship.

Pool Play Results:

POOL 1

Sault St. Marie 9-1

Houghton 8-2

Carney 5-5

Marquette 4-6

Munising 2-8

Rapid River 2-8

POOL 2

Calumet 10-0

Engadine 6-4

Cedarville 5-5

Superior Central 3-7

Chassell 3-7

Gwinn 3-7

Semi-Finals:

#1 Sault St Marie vs #2 Engadine

(25-14, 24-26, 15-7)

#1 Calumet vs #2 Hougthon

(14-25, 25-14, 15-9)

Finals:

Calumet vs Sault St. Marie

(25-18, 27-26)

Once again all the thanks to the teams and coaches that attended, AD at Gwinn High School, Gwinn Varsity Volleyball team and all the Articatz Parents & Players for making the 2008 Articatz "Autumn Classic" a huge success.

The Future of Youth Vollleyball..............

Well if you have been listening to the radio today you have heard that the

West Branch is officially closed.

It stated that it would close in 30 days but if you have driven past the doors they are chained and locked from the inside.

So much for 30 days.

The future of our Youth is at stack. I still plan on having our youth volleyball clinics. The clinic will be held at the Baraga Police Station Gymnasium in Marquette.

The "Volley Tots" and "Middle Diggers"

will still start on Sept. 26th thru Nov. 7th (6:30-8pm Fridays).

The "Junior Spikers" will start on Nov. 14th and go till Dec. 19th (6:30-8:30pm Fridays)

I will be putting an ad in the Mining Journal next week and if you know of anyone that is interested please forward this blog to them.

I really appreciate your support and I look forward to continuing the growth of volleyball and the youth in our area.

Click Here for Fall Youth Program Brochure

The Future of Articatz............

School is beginning and it is already time to let everyone know about

the future of the Articatz Volleyball Club.

We recently were informed that the status of the West Branch Fitness Community Center is in question. Barry Bahrmann resigned as the director of the facility as noted in the Mining Journal towards the end of our season last year, he was integral in the establishment and viability of the facility. Without that strong leadership, there has been a large amount of instability in support for the WBFCC on the part of the West Branch Township Board.

Given this instability, we have decided to look for an alternative training facility. After considerable time and discussion we have been able to attain time slots at Northern Michigan University for the Articatz Volleyball Club to train. Tentative days for practice are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 9pm. These are tentative and will be subject to change based on other events that may be scheduled by the University.

We are excited about the prospects of being able to train at these top notch facilities (Vandament Arena is one of the best volleyball facilities in all of NCAA Division II).

"We believe that it will make the program that much stronger."

We look for everyone’s support of this change in venues for our program.

We will be providing much more detail as things continue to unfold in this new chapter for Articatz Volleyball.