SEATTLE, WA -- May 30, 2006
The 2006 Emerald City Classic Invitational is complete. The weather was less than we hoped for, but we did stay dry on Monday at least.

On behalf of the hundreds of WVBA parent, staff and family volunteers, as well as the players, we would like to thank everyone that attended this year's event. This tournament is virutally a 100% volunteer effort and the personal contribution of hundreds of volunteers and thousands of hours is apparent and appreciated by those in attendance. We welcome suggestions on improving our event for next year.

18 Open Gold
The 2006 18 Open title will once again go to KJ 18 Baden^®. This is the fifth straight year that KJ has won this title. Can anyone beat these guys?

This year's trip to the finals was not without adversity. KJ fell to Rose City Mizuno^® 17 Black in round 1 to drop from their #1 overall seed entering the tournament. In day 2 KJ fell again to a team from Oregon, this time at the hands of Nike^® NW 18 Air/Elite.

But this team can play big when it counts and began Monday with a crossover round victory over Webfoot 18 Gold. This set up the rematch with Jim Kirby's Rose City squad in the first round of Gold bracket play. KJ narrowly prevailed in set one then dominated set two for the win (25-23, 25-12). Their next obstacle was our own WVBA Mizuno^® 18-Black team. KJ outlasted the Academy's elder team in three (21-25, 25-14, 15-9).

Meanwhile, in the other side of the bracket Nike^® NW was steadily steering through their opponents intent on a collision with KJ in the finals. With wins over Bill Marshall's Cowlitz 18 Asics^® team and a very strong and scrappy Thunder 18-HP team from Vancouver, BC, Nike^® NW moved onto a a #1 vs. #2 seed final against KJ.

After narrowly dropping set one to KJ 24-26, Nike^® bounced back in set two with a 25-18 correction to even the match. With momentum still favoring Rod Jone's Gresham, OR squad, KJ pushed back hard with great defense and solid play all around by tournament MVP Kylie Marshall to win 15-9.

Congratulations to Dawn Colston and Steve Whitaker for keeping their team focused through adversity this weekend to play their best volleyball on Monday afternoon when it counted the most.

Results and Pictures
The results for all divisions have been posted. Please let us know if you find any errors and we will try and get them corrected as quickly as possible.

This year we promise to get the team and individual pictures posted more quickly. We may need some help identifying some of the pictures we have and will post our own "Where's Waldo" game with those teams we can't identify. Our photo gallery will also be posted soon, after I get a little sleep.

16 Open Gold
Minas Tênis Clube from Brazil won the 16 Open title. Minas traveled 24 hours straight to Seattle last Wednesday with two 16 & Under teams. Last year Minas made their first appearance at the Emerald City Classic with three teams. This year's top team featured 4 players invited to play with the Brazilian junior national team program this July. Needless to say, they came here to win, and they did. Minas went through the tournament without dropping a single set. These Brazilians seemed to be able to step up a gear whenever a team started to threaten their lead.

Monday morning's crossover round for Minas was against Rose City 16 Black, who they quickly dispatched 25-13, 25-11. This moved Minas to court 7 where they rolled over Cowlitz 16 Black 25-10, 25-16. Bonnie Foote's KJ 15 Baden^® team gave Minas its first real test of the tournament by pushing set two into AD scoring before falling in the semi-finals 20-25, 26-28 on Court 2.

On the other side of the bracket Spokane Splash 16s enjoyed a #2 seed first round bye before facing WVBA 16-Black. Splash beat the Academy squad 25-20, 25-22 in the quarter-finals before moving to Court 1 for the semi-finals.

Splash's next opponent was the strong 16 Gold team of Puget Sound VBC featuring Megan McBride. Lenny Llanos' team was just coming off a thrilling win over perhaps the top 16 & Under team in all of Canada, Victoria's Mill Bay Breakers 18-25, 26-24, 16-14. Spokane handled Puget Sound in set one 25-13 but Lenny's team turned it up in set two and held out as long as possible before suffering a 26-28 loss for a third place finish.

A pretty decent crowd was gathering in the Bank of America^® Arena when the whistle blew to start the finals. Splash jumped out of the gate with excellent serving and even better defense. 5' 6" Oceana Bush was digging every shot 2005 ECC 16 Open MVP Rafeala Dal Ponte could hit. Finally Rafaela decided it would be easier to hit away from Oceana to get a kill. Long rallies, thundering blows and a few debated calls marked this very entertaining finals match. Minas won in two sets 25-23, 25-17. Amongst the very talented roster from Brazil, 15-year old Clara Machado of Minas 15 White also proved herself this year to be a bright future talent with consistent play throughout the weekend.