Qualifying Season Open for 2008 USA Junior Olympic Girls’ Volleyball Championships

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (March 6, 2008) – The qualifying path to the 2008 USA Junior Olympic Girls’ Volleyball Championships starts Saturday, March 8, at the Colorado Crossroads in Denver. All told, nine different qualifiers will be staged to seat a majority of teams into the national championships held June 26 to July 5 at the Dallas Convention Center in Texas.

Going into its 29th running, the USA Junior Olympic Girls’ Volleyball Championships (JOVC) attracts nearly 8,500 athletes annually to the event hosted by USA Volleyball. The tournament will crown 19 champions in age divisions ranging from 12 to 18. Further, the event draws not only thousands of family and friends, but hundreds of college recruiters looking for the next top players for their programs.

The Qualifiers are licensed by USAV and operate under parameters set by USAV. The primary purpose of the Qualifiers is to determine, through tournament competition, which teams in various age groups will qualify to compete at the JOVC. Tournament play at the Qualifiers is divided into Open divisions and Club divisions.

The secondary purposes of Qualifiers are to: promote inter-regional play; provide a high-level of competition for teams; showcase junior talent for college recruiters and National Team programs; promote the growth and development of volleyball in a particular geographic area; and provide a training ground for officials. Currently, there are nine Qualifiers: Big South, Colorado Crossroads, Far Western, Hoosier Mideast, Lone Star, Northeast, Northern Lights, Pacific Northwest, and Southern California. For a listing of the Qualifiers and dates, click here.

Each Qualifier will award a certain number of bids to the top finishing teams in all divisions that meet bid threshold requirements. (See the formulas below.) The number of teams in a division will determine the number of bids a Qualifier is allocated for each Open and Club division according to these guidelines:

In the Open divisions of Qualifiers, bids will go to the teams that finish the competition in a bid award position. A bid will “trickle down” to the next highest finishing team, no lower than sixth. (YJOVD, May 2007, Motion 18) All Girls’ Open Divisions of Qualifiers at a minimum will play out through sixth place.

The Qualifier Club division can potentially award both a National division bid and an American division bid. The National bid goes to the team finishing first in the age group, and the American bid goes to the team finishing second. Club bids awarded at the Qualifiers have the potential to “trickle down.” The lowest finishing team that may earn a Club bid at a Qualifier is the fourth-place team. All Girls Club divisions of Qualifiers at a minimum will play out through fourth place.

Reallocation bids are the pool of JOVC Club division (National and American) bids available for redistribution. These include bids from regions that do not use all of their originally allocated bids, as well as unused Qualifier bids. The formula for determining which regions receive reallocation bids is based on how close the region’s number of junior female registrants from the prior season is to the next membership benchmark, relative to other regions’ proximities to their next benchmarks. The benchmarks are established each year according to the total number of junior females registered in each region. Each region with 200 or more registered junior female players will have at least one National bid to award to a regional team.

The goal of the Open divisions at the JOVC is to identify the best team in the country through rigorous competition in a particular age classification from among the top 28 teams. The Open divisions of the Qualifiers are designed to identify and select those top 28 teams. Teams have only one avenue to gain entry into an Open division of the JOVC—participate in an Open division at a Qualifier and either earn a bid at the Qualifier or perform well enough to earn an at-large bid. The JOVC crowns Open Division winners for age groups 14-and-Under, 15-and-Under, 16-and-Under, 17-and-Under and 18-and-Under.

The goal of the Club divisions at the JOVC is to showcase regionally strong teams in competition and to provide the opportunity for more teams to participate at the JOVC. Teams have two avenues to gain entry into the Club divisions (National or American) at the JOVC: 1. Earn a bid at a Qualifier; or 2. Earn a bid through their region’s qualifying process. The JOVC crowns Club division winners in the National and American divisions for 12-and-Under, 13-and-Under, 14-and-Under, 15-and-Under, 16-and-Under, 17-and-Under and 18-and-Under.