The MHS Lady Bulldogs Maroon team finished the summer league as the 2006 Summer League Champions and the MHS White team followed their team mates with some great matches of their own, finishing as the Runner-Up! This exciting league volleyball-action was a culmination of approximately 5 weeks of volleyball play against some of the better teams in Magnolia's area and new District 15-5A competitors. Teams such as Conroe, Montgomery, Spring, Woodlands, Oak Ridge, College-Park, and Tomball, Willis - all fell to the Lady Bulldogs whose depth, power, skills, and 'experience' consistently, out-matched their foes.
Let's get ready to RUMBLE !!........
The ladies finished summer-league play just in time to pack up for three days of training and playing against a variety of teams (37 total) with an estimated 400 athletes from the state - who were also just as excited to be attending the UT Volleyball Camp, in Austin, TX..... Little did the Lady Bulldogs know that they were going to be the ones putting on the clinic!!
The camp opened on Tuesday afternoon with team training; followed by the UT Volleyball players who went through demonstrations of drills; before the teams broke out with their assigned coaches. Magnolia played 11 rapid fire games to determine the top seeding process. One game each, first to 15 wins. The Lady Bulldogs won all but 1 game with the scores: Burbank 15-1, Pleasanton 15-5, Pampa 15-10, Lumberton 15-4, Haltom 15-7, Crystal City 15-4, S & S 15-3, Calallen 16-14, Henderson 15-5, Hightower 13-15, Henrietta 15-7. Later the match play format was 'best 2 out of 3 sets' , and the Lady Bulldogs proceeded to win the first 2 sets of each match against: Fox Tech, Kingsville, and Round Rock.
On Wednesday morning, the ladies played the following teams: Haltom, Oakridge, Pampa - again, winning all of their games. The afternoon schedule had the Lady Bulldogs playing Calallen (winning 2-1), Hampshire Fannett, and Oakridge before having an opportunity to scrimmage against a UT team which reportedly, has the 2nd highest ranked recruiting team in the country. Well, they certainly had our ladies' undivided attention during the rest of the evening demonstration...... and the Lady Bulldogs did very well...... Lady Bulldog MH Hannah Fort put the "Hannah Hustle" on the UT team - putting a nice kill down from a glide which excited the team and the crowd! They played controlled points and worked on different drills in front of all (large crowd of 400+) of the other camp attendees, athletes and coaches.
We'll get back to see how the ladies placed in the final tournament played on Thursday, but first: the reviews are coming in!........ (some of the comments from observers): ......"it looked as though the ladies bonded nicely and the played their roles very, very well........Good mixture of size, power, speed, and quickness......Great defense!.....Fun to watch!!.....I laughed, I cried..." (wait a minute - that was the movie I saw last night!).
The Lady Bulldogs focused on the task at hand!
One of the more humorous highlights (for some) was when Alicia Shaffer knocked over the water barrel on an adjacent court going for the ball in the championship game. They had to delay the match for 5 minutes cleaning up the water! After a collective sigh of relief, everyone got a laugh out of that. The daily routine was to eat (breakfast), walk to gym, play, walk to dorm, eat (lunch), walk to gym, play, walk to dorm, eat (dinner), walk to gym, play, walk to dorm…..clean up, hang out in rooms until 11PM curfew. The kids were mandated to take the stairs up and down from the 5th floor every day. Each time they walked to the gym to play their matches and train - it was quite a hike of about 1/2 mile to and from the gym. I'm wondering.....was that uphill both ways? After a full day of volleyball, you just got to know -the ladies were very tired.....and we can only presume they slept so well!
The Lady Bulldogs are still laughing!!...too much fun!!
On Thursday, July 27th the tournament champions would be crowned and the big news is: the Magnolia Lady Bulldogs are the UT Volleyball Camp Champions and have the trophy to prove it!! Magnolia entered the last day as the overall #1 seed after 2 days of tournament play. In the last match of single elimination play- they faced Clements Varsity, the overall #2 seed in the camp and wanting to win this championship match as bad as anybody. Clements had already beaten a tough Calallen team (who had just taken out a Nixa high school from Missouri) and may have remembered when they last played against Magnolia in the 2005 Spring Branch Tournament. Undaunted and "on a mission".....the ladies continued to play strong, going undefeated (6-0) with the final results looking like this:
Quarterfinals: Magnolia vs. Rockwall (25-14, 25-13)
Semifinals: Magnolia vs. Hightower (27-25, 25-11)
Championship Match: Magnolia vs. Clements (25-15, 25-19)
Very impressive ladies, and a great team effort!!
Here's the list of the Lady Bulldogs attendees (in alphabetical order):
Anna Barren
Kristyn Bergen
Hannah Fort
Mandi Gray
Caitlin Holland
Jamie Kaleh
Sam Lange
Breane Matula
Ashley Meeks
Kati Michael
Alicia Shaffer
Kelli Stewart
A very special "Thanks" needs to go out to the designated team drivers and the wonderful chaperones: Ann Stewart and Lee Ann Kaleh! We all know it's a lot of work and patience and a thankless job, but the parents, coaches and players really appreciate the help and guidance you provided. Also a big Thanks to 'Bones' Shaffer for the pictures and information. Y'all did a great job. Thank you.
The Lady Bulldogs deserve special recognition for their 3 days of camp volleyball by representing themselves, their families, school, friends, fans and the community of Magnolia, so well. Once all the pieces of the puzzle are all put back together again, this high school season should be real exciting to watch and the ladies will be very hard to beat.
We're sure looking forward to it !!
The 2006 Magnolia Lady Bulldogs holding the
Championship trophy from the UT Volleyball Camp.
