Volleyball club- recap and thoughts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2024 gjnc 17u final ranking (nationl division):
Va elite: 13 out of 48
Metro: 33 out of 48.

Congratulations team.

Congrats - good finish for VA Elite. It really shows how important a little luck (i.e., seeding) and winning the right matches are to have a high finish. VA Elite went 4-5 for the tournament and Metro went 7-3, but VA Elite won the matches they needed to to get to the top half. Also, in terms of the W-L record, presumably Metro played easier teams after pool play since they were in the bottom half meaning their W-L record was against weaker teams.

Both teams were 3-2 in their initial pool but VA Elite ended up 3rd while Metro ended up 4th which dropped them to the bottom half of tournament and eliminated any chance of getting to the gold, silver, or bronze bracket. If you look at the results of the teams from each of their pools, it would appear that Metro was in a tougher pool. The teams from VA Elite's pool that advanced to the top half finished:

5th TX Performance

13th A4 Volley

13th VA Elite

The teams from Metro's pool that advanced to the top half finished:

1st Adrenaline

3rd Mintonette

9th FRVBC

And not to take anything away from their accomplishment, but VA Elite's instagram post on this result was funny. It seems to be missing several important details that would make it actually true. "CONGRATULATIONS to our 17s for placing 13th in the country and being the HIGHEST FINISHING CHRVA TEAM at USAV Nationals." They finished 13th in the 17 National division meaning the entire Open division of 36 teams were in a higher division so I don't think that saying they were 13th in the country without any further description is correct. Also, the Paramount 16s team finished 5th in the 16 National division and the Paramount 17s finished 5th in the 17 American division and 5th sure seems higher than 13th to me. It would be accurate to say VAE 17s was the highest finishing CHRVA 17s team in the 17 National division though.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Also, as teams get older the unfortunately reality is that more players get injured meaning have a deep bench provides some level of resiliency. Metro 17 Travel has 2 players out with torn ACLs and another 2 not playing much at GJNC because of lingering injuries. Another thing that seems to happen more often on older teams is that players quit in the middle of the season. The Paramount 17s that started the season with 15 players only has 10 on the roster at GJNC.

Usually the solution to this is pulling up players from a 2s team, not keeping 15 on the top team. CHRVA is somewhat unique in that VA Elite, Paramount and Metro only run 1 team at the national level. While Metro does have a number of regional teams at each age group, when was the last time Metro travel pulled someone up mid-season to cover for injuries?

And as for quitting teams, 33% of the team leaving does seem a bit extreme, no? Doesn't seem like a reason to carry 4-5 extra players, unless you know in advance that the coaching style/competitive pressure is guaranteed have that many quit each year.

Metro and Paramount have such large teams b/c they can pull players away from other teams with the "allure" of playing for "the best team in CHRVA" but girls dont get the playing time and parents fall for the craziness of name vs quality of club and team dynamics.

I'd hope that 33% of the team quitting is an outlier and agree it's not a legit reason to carry 15 players, but I do think that planning for injuries is valid. I think the MVSA 17s only had 7 or fewer players at their last few tournaments, including AAU Nationals. Carrying only 10 players can be risky, even with a 2nd team to pull from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Metro and Paramount have such large teams b/c they can pull players away from other teams with the "allure" of playing for "the best team in CHRVA" but girls dont get the playing time and parents fall for the craziness of name vs quality of club and team dynamics.

I agree Metro and Paramount have an allure that allows them to attract more top CHRVA talent. I suspect it has more to do with their recruiting results than being "the best team in CHRVA". Team dynamics are subjective and I'd bet many (if not most) players on both Metro and Paramount enjoy their experiences. I'm curious what other CHRVA clubs you think are higher in "quality"?

[Anonymous]

I think the MVSA 17s only had 7 or fewer players at their last few tournaments, including AAU Nationals. Carrying only 10 players can be risky, even with a 2nd team to pull from.
MVSA had 4 injured players on AAU, so technically only 6 players and a sub from another team. Considering circumstances, they held up decently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2024 gjnc 17u final ranking (nationl division):
Va elite: 13 out of 48
Metro: 33 out of 48.

Congratulations team.

Congrats - good finish for VA Elite. It really shows how important a little luck (i.e., seeding) and winning the right matches are to have a high finish. VA Elite went 4-5 for the tournament and Metro went 7-3, but VA Elite won the matches they needed to to get to the top half. Also, in terms of the W-L record, presumably Metro played easier teams after pool play since they were in the bottom half meaning their W-L record was against weaker teams.

Both teams were 3-2 in their initial pool but VA Elite ended up 3rd while Metro ended up 4th which dropped them to the bottom half of tournament and eliminated any chance of getting to the gold, silver, or bronze bracket. If you look at the results of the teams from each of their pools, it would appear that Metro was in a tougher pool. The teams from VA Elite's pool that advanced to the top half finished:

5th TX Performance

13th A4 Volley

13th VA Elite

The teams from Metro's pool that advanced to the top half finished:

1st Adrenaline

3rd Mintonette

9th FRVBC

And not to take anything away from their accomplishment, but VA Elite's instagram post on this result was funny. It seems to be missing several important details that would make it actually true. "CONGRATULATIONS to our 17s for placing 13th in the country and being the HIGHEST FINISHING CHRVA TEAM at USAV Nationals." They finished 13th in the 17 National division meaning the entire Open division of 36 teams were in a higher division so I don't think that saying they were 13th in the country without any further description is correct. Also, the Paramount 16s team finished 5th in the 16 National division and the Paramount 17s finished 5th in the 17 American division and 5th sure seems higher than 13th to me. It would be accurate to say VAE 17s was the highest finishing CHRVA 17s team in the 17 National division though.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story

Paramount 16s also did well to win the right matches and were the beneficiary of a little good luck to get their 5th place finish in 16 National. Somehow managed to get 3rd out of 6 teams in their initial pool with a 2-3 record, went 1-1 in their round 2 pool, and then (most importantly) won their crossover match to get into the gold bracket. They went 4-5 overall. The next highest finish for a 16 National team with a losing record was 19th place.

Liberty Elite 17s had a similar path managing to get 5th in 17 Freedom with a 4-5 record.

Interestingly, PrepDig did the math for all CHRVA teams across all 16-17 GJNC divisions (excluding those playing in the Patriot division which does not require a bid) and came up with an overall record for the 17 age group of 30-25 (66-62). For 16s, not one CHRVA team finished with a winning record as they combined to go 17-31 (45-69).

Still lots of work for CHRVA to be more competitive on the national stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited. Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice. As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations. You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group. Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.

Also, as teams get older the unfortunately reality is that more players get injured meaning have a deep bench provides some level of resiliency. Metro 17 Travel has 2 players out with torn ACLs and another 2 not playing much at GJNC because of lingering injuries. Another thing that seems to happen more often on older teams is that players quit in the middle of the season. The Paramount 17s that started the season with 15 players only has 10 on the roster at GJNC.

So many serious injuries in one team means the club need pay more attention to player's welfare, after all volleyball is only part of these girls life. There is something called science in sports physiology. Just pushing the girls to the limit is irresponsible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited. Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice. As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations. You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group. Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.

PP- really valuable perspective- thank you for taking the time to type this out- such rationale and thoughtful insight. Unfortunately CHRVAs first challenge is to get out of the paramount or metro or you won't get recruited menatlity. Paramount and Metro actively recruit and contribute to the problem by stacking their benches. There are plenty of teams in the region, that's not the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited. Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice. As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations. You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group. Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.

PP- really valuable perspective- thank you for taking the time to type this out- such rationale and thoughtful insight. Unfortunately CHRVAs first challenge is to get out of the paramount or metro or you won't get recruited menatlity. Paramount and Metro actively recruit and contribute to the problem by stacking their benches. There are plenty of teams in the region, that's not the issue.

I agree that the objective of club volleyball should be more than getting players recruited to play in college, however it is also clear that for the players needed for a team to compete at the open level nationally, that recruiting success is going to be an important factor in attracting the best players. It would be great if there were many CHRVA clubs to choose from that had a solid history of helping girls get recruited, but that isn't currently the case. So while getting players recruited shouldn't be CHRVA's primary goal, it is indisputably something that successful clubs have to offer in order to be competitive.

According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/2/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-college-athletics.aspx), around 3.9% of high school volleyball players will compete in the NCAA, and 1.2% will go to a D1 school. There are other opportunities to play collegiately at non-NCAA programs too. So doing a little back of the envelope math for the class of 2025 (current 17s who have been recruitable for over a year), if you look at AES, there were 132 CHRVA 16s teams last season (using last year because the number of girls playing club tends to drop off after 16s - according to AES there were only 84 17s CHRVA teams this season). Assuming an average of 12 players per team (obviously some have more and some have less and some girls don't play with the age group that aligns with their HS grad year) x 132 teams, that means there were around 1,584 girls playing club volleyball in the region from the class of 2025. Using the NCAA percentages, there would be approximately 62 girls expected to play NCAA volleyball from CHRVA. Of those, about 19 would be expected to be D1.

Now looking at the data from PrepDig (which is probably not 100% accurate but not sure of a better source), from the class of 2025 there are currently 24 CHRVA players committed to play D1 indoor volleyball. In terms of the club breakdown (using the club these players are currently shown as playing for), 14 are from Metro, 4 are from VA Elite, 3 are from Paramount, 1 is from MVSA, 1 is from CEVA, and 1 is from Blue Ridge. There are 4 D3 commitments shown as well, but D3 schools tend to recruit later so this is probably not at all reflective of what the final tally will be be for this class year.

So what does this data suggest? CHRVA seems to be outperforming expectations in terms of the number of D1 commits (24 committed versus 19 expected). The breakdown of commits from CHRVA clubs is pretty lopsided with Metro having the majority of players committed to play D1.

So in terms of the discussion of how to improve the level of CHRVA teams on the national level I'm not sure what actions the region could take. Obviously if the ~7 non-starters on the Metro Travel teams were distributed among other competitive teams, that might increase parity within the region a little bit but I don't know if it would result in any improvement in how any of these teams perform against open teams from other regions. And it's not clear how CHRVA could do this anyway - USAV caps the roster size at 15 and I doubt CHRVA would be allowed to set a lower cap. It's also not reasonable to expect individual players who want to play D1 volleyball to go to another club if they get an offer from Metro. The data suggests that playing for a Metro Travel team does give an advantage in getting recruited and pretty much every player on a Metro Travel team hopes to play in college.

Having watched some of the better open teams at 16s, 17s, and 18s, there are very few teams that are taller or more athletic than Metro Travel teams, but the teams that beat Metro tend to be better at ball control (i.e., defense and setting) and make fewer unforced errors. That is often assumed to be from coaching or other training that these teams must do better, and that might be part of the difference, but I also think the point that was made earlier in this thread about the number of first generation players in CHRVA versus regions where volleyball has been popular for decades and one or both parents played competitive volleyball is probably true. Also, the importance Metro places on height and raw athleticism when choosing teams often means they are taking players without as many years playing experience than those that are playing on these other teams and that difference in experience/skill is their advantage.

The problem of how to improve the level of CHRVA volleyball is a challenging one. Lots of issues have been identified in many posts here, but I haven't seen any realistic solutions offered yet and I'm not sure there is a silver bullet. Unfortunately, I think any improvement is going to be slow and incremental. Assuming the level of interest in volleyball continues to increase, more girls will play volleyball and more teams/clubs will be created to provide a place for them to play. Hopefully most of these teams will provide good experiences for their players and some will emerge as alternatives to the status quo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited. Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice. As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations. You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group. Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.

PP- really valuable perspective- thank you for taking the time to type this out- such rationale and thoughtful insight. Unfortunately CHRVAs first challenge is to get out of the paramount or metro or you won't get recruited menatlity. Paramount and Metro actively recruit and contribute to the problem by stacking their benches. There are plenty of teams in the region, that's not the issue.

I agree that the objective of club volleyball should be more than getting players recruited to play in college, however it is also clear that for the players needed for a team to compete at the open level nationally, that recruiting success is going to be an important factor in attracting the best players. It would be great if there were many CHRVA clubs to choose from that had a solid history of helping girls get recruited, but that isn't currently the case. So while getting players recruited shouldn't be CHRVA's primary goal, it is indisputably something that successful clubs have to offer in order to be competitive.

According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/2/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-college-athletics.aspx), around 3.9% of high school volleyball players will compete in the NCAA, and 1.2% will go to a D1 school. There are other opportunities to play collegiately at non-NCAA programs too. So doing a little back of the envelope math for the class of 2025 (current 17s who have been recruitable for over a year), if you look at AES, there were 132 CHRVA 16s teams last season (using last year because the number of girls playing club tends to drop off after 16s - according to AES there were only 84 17s CHRVA teams this season). Assuming an average of 12 players per team (obviously some have more and some have less and some girls don't play with the age group that aligns with their HS grad year) x 132 teams, that means there were around 1,584 girls playing club volleyball in the region from the class of 2025. Using the NCAA percentages, there would be approximately 62 girls expected to play NCAA volleyball from CHRVA. Of those, about 19 would be expected to be D1.

Now looking at the data from PrepDig (which is probably not 100% accurate but not sure of a better source), from the class of 2025 there are currently 24 CHRVA players committed to play D1 indoor volleyball. In terms of the club breakdown (using the club these players are currently shown as playing for), 14 are from Metro, 4 are from VA Elite, 3 are from Paramount, 1 is from MVSA, 1 is from CEVA, and 1 is from Blue Ridge. There are 4 D3 commitments shown as well, but D3 schools tend to recruit later so this is probably not at all reflective of what the final tally will be be for this class year.

So what does this data suggest? CHRVA seems to be outperforming expectations in terms of the number of D1 commits (24 committed versus 19 expected). The breakdown of commits from CHRVA clubs is pretty lopsided with Metro having the majority of players committed to play D1.

So in terms of the discussion of how to improve the level of CHRVA teams on the national level I'm not sure what actions the region could take. Obviously if the ~7 non-starters on the Metro Travel teams were distributed among other competitive teams, that might increase parity within the region a little bit but I don't know if it would result in any improvement in how any of these teams perform against open teams from other regions. And it's not clear how CHRVA could do this anyway - USAV caps the roster size at 15 and I doubt CHRVA would be allowed to set a lower cap. It's also not reasonable to expect individual players who want to play D1 volleyball to go to another club if they get an offer from Metro. The data suggests that playing for a Metro Travel team does give an advantage in getting recruited and pretty much every player on a Metro Travel team hopes to play in college.

Having watched some of the better open teams at 16s, 17s, and 18s, there are very few teams that are taller or more athletic than Metro Travel teams, but the teams that beat Metro tend to be better at ball control (i.e., defense and setting) and make fewer unforced errors. That is often assumed to be from coaching or other training that these teams must do better, and that might be part of the difference, but I also think the point that was made earlier in this thread about the number of first generation players in CHRVA versus regions where volleyball has been popular for decades and one or both parents played competitive volleyball is probably true. Also, the importance Metro places on height and raw athleticism when choosing teams often means they are taking players without as many years playing experience than those that are playing on these other teams and that difference in experience/skill is their advantage.

The problem of how to improve the level of CHRVA volleyball is a challenging one. Lots of issues have been identified in many posts here, but I haven't seen any realistic solutions offered yet and I'm not sure there is a silver bullet. Unfortunately, I think any improvement is going to be slow and incremental. Assuming the level of interest in volleyball continues to increase, more girls will play volleyball and more teams/clubs will be created to provide a place for them to play. Hopefully most of these teams will provide good experiences for their players and some will emerge as alternatives to the status quo.

There are three atleast from VAJRs that are D1- Georgia State, JMU, UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited. Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice. As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations. You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group. Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.

PP- really valuable perspective- thank you for taking the time to type this out- such rationale and thoughtful insight. Unfortunately CHRVAs first challenge is to get out of the paramount or metro or you won't get recruited menatlity. Paramount and Metro actively recruit and contribute to the problem by stacking their benches. There are plenty of teams in the region, that's not the issue.

I agree that the objective of club volleyball should be more than getting players recruited to play in college, however it is also clear that for the players needed for a team to compete at the open level nationally, that recruiting success is going to be an important factor in attracting the best players. It would be great if there were many CHRVA clubs to choose from that had a solid history of helping girls get recruited, but that isn't currently the case. So while getting players recruited shouldn't be CHRVA's primary goal, it is indisputably something that successful clubs have to offer in order to be competitive.

According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/2/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-college-athletics.aspx), around 3.9% of high school volleyball players will compete in the NCAA, and 1.2% will go to a D1 school. There are other opportunities to play collegiately at non-NCAA programs too. So doing a little back of the envelope math for the class of 2025 (current 17s who have been recruitable for over a year), if you look at AES, there were 132 CHRVA 16s teams last season (using last year because the number of girls playing club tends to drop off after 16s - according to AES there were only 84 17s CHRVA teams this season). Assuming an average of 12 players per team (obviously some have more and some have less and some girls don't play with the age group that aligns with their HS grad year) x 132 teams, that means there were around 1,584 girls playing club volleyball in the region from the class of 2025. Using the NCAA percentages, there would be approximately 62 girls expected to play NCAA volleyball from CHRVA. Of those, about 19 would be expected to be D1.

Now looking at the data from PrepDig (which is probably not 100% accurate but not sure of a better source), from the class of 2025 there are currently 24 CHRVA players committed to play D1 indoor volleyball. In terms of the club breakdown (using the club these players are currently shown as playing for), 14 are from Metro, 4 are from VA Elite, 3 are from Paramount, 1 is from MVSA, 1 is from CEVA, and 1 is from Blue Ridge. There are 4 D3 commitments shown as well, but D3 schools tend to recruit later so this is probably not at all reflective of what the final tally will be be for this class year.

So what does this data suggest? CHRVA seems to be outperforming expectations in terms of the number of D1 commits (24 committed versus 19 expected). The breakdown of commits from CHRVA clubs is pretty lopsided with Metro having the majority of players committed to play D1.

So in terms of the discussion of how to improve the level of CHRVA teams on the national level I'm not sure what actions the region could take. Obviously if the ~7 non-starters on the Metro Travel teams were distributed among other competitive teams, that might increase parity within the region a little bit but I don't know if it would result in any improvement in how any of these teams perform against open teams from other regions. And it's not clear how CHRVA could do this anyway - USAV caps the roster size at 15 and I doubt CHRVA would be allowed to set a lower cap. It's also not reasonable to expect individual players who want to play D1 volleyball to go to another club if they get an offer from Metro. The data suggests that playing for a Metro Travel team does give an advantage in getting recruited and pretty much every player on a Metro Travel team hopes to play in college.

Having watched some of the better open teams at 16s, 17s, and 18s, there are very few teams that are taller or more athletic than Metro Travel teams, but the teams that beat Metro tend to be better at ball control (i.e., defense and setting) and make fewer unforced errors. That is often assumed to be from coaching or other training that these teams must do better, and that might be part of the difference, but I also think the point that was made earlier in this thread about the number of first generation players in CHRVA versus regions where volleyball has been popular for decades and one or both parents played competitive volleyball is probably true. Also, the importance Metro places on height and raw athleticism when choosing teams often means they are taking players without as many years playing experience than those that are playing on these other teams and that difference in experience/skill is their advantage.

The problem of how to improve the level of CHRVA volleyball is a challenging one. Lots of issues have been identified in many posts here, but I haven't seen any realistic solutions offered yet and I'm not sure there is a silver bullet. Unfortunately, I think any improvement is going to be slow and incremental. Assuming the level of interest in volleyball continues to increase, more girls will play volleyball and more teams/clubs will be created to provide a place for them to play. Hopefully most of these teams will provide good experiences for their players and some will emerge as alternatives to the status quo.

There are three atleast from VAJRs that are D1- Georgia State, JMU, UVA.

From the class of 2025? Haven't seen those reported anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As to the idea of doing a power league format instead of a one-day bid regional tournament, I don't think this would result in any meaningful difference in the teams that rise to the top. Again using 17s an an example, I think it's pretty clear for this age group that Metro, VA Elite, Paramount, and Blue Ridge are the top teams in CHRVA...And playing at more qualifiers gets the players more exposure to college coaches - 11 players from 17 Travel are committed to D1 schools. VA Elite 17s has 4 D1 commits so far.

If your goal is to get a player recruited, then there's no reason to care much about the region as a whole. But the discussion is why CHRVA isn't doing as well as expected -- and a lot of it tracks back to exactly the reasoning you gave above -- a focus on recruiting rather than competitive improvement as a whole. Those regions all have more D1 players across their teams, so the power league doesn't hurt recruiting at all. They still attend qualifiers. What the other regions have realized is that there is no value in having only 3-4 "best" teams and then having the rest of the regions clubs be feeder systems into those teams. Instead, they focus on having 10-12 competitive teams.

There's always a chance that one of our teams catches lightning in a bottle and does great at nationals, but if we want consistent performances every year then the focus would need to switch to developing many, many more players than the 15 you cited above. For those families currently in the recruiting cycle and clubs who market heavily based on recruiting there are lots of reasons not to do this, so there is little to no interest in making meaningful structural improvements to the way the region develops a broad base of talent.

But forcing these teams to play each other within the region isn't going to do anything to raise the level of CHRVA teams against the rest of the country - playing in Open at National Qualifiers is the way to get exposure to the top teams in the country. Metro, Paramount, and VA Elite all went to 3 or 4 qualifiers playing in the Open division. While none of them earned an Open bid, playing at those tournaments helps them improve far more than playing each other week after week vying for a National bid.

Let's agree to disagree on that. If your DD plays for one of those clubs, then you likely believe this statement. But its not relevant to improving the region as a whole.

Compared to other regions, too many of the "top" teams take too many players, b/c there is a belief around DC that if you don't play for the top teams, you can't get recruited. Coming from a region with many more D1 recruits, there was a different mentality: you develop the fastest by playing a large number of meaningful points in tournaments and by maximizing touches in practice. As a result, team sizes were smaller so more players play in tournaments and more players get exposure to coaches at those tournaments -- and more get recruited. For comparison, here's the team sizes from the AAU Open finals this year:
16: Mintonette-11, Skyline-13
17: Tribe-11, Sports Performance-9

For comparison, here's our USAV national team sizes:
16: Paramount-15
17: Metro-15, VA Elite-13

And the players on the AAU teams played significant minutes and points. Now head to BallerTV and count how many players on our teams barely see the court during a match this week. There is very little competitive benefit if you never see the court, play garbage time points or get in for just a few rotations. You'd be better off getting extra hours in the practice gym. And the # of players also impacts the # of touches players get in practice -- especially in competitive gameplay drills where research has shown the most substantial player development occurs.

Here's a fun game -- head to AES and sort any of the top regions like NO, FL, DE, HA by national rank for virtually any age group. Then check the top 5 teams for how many players are on their roster. CHRVA's average is 14! players, and that's with Blue Ridge only taking 10.

PP- really valuable perspective- thank you for taking the time to type this out- such rationale and thoughtful insight. Unfortunately CHRVAs first challenge is to get out of the paramount or metro or you won't get recruited menatlity. Paramount and Metro actively recruit and contribute to the problem by stacking their benches. There are plenty of teams in the region, that's not the issue.

I agree that the objective of club volleyball should be more than getting players recruited to play in college, however it is also clear that for the players needed for a team to compete at the open level nationally, that recruiting success is going to be an important factor in attracting the best players. It would be great if there were many CHRVA clubs to choose from that had a solid history of helping girls get recruited, but that isn't currently the case. So while getting players recruited shouldn't be CHRVA's primary goal, it is indisputably something that successful clubs have to offer in order to be competitive.

According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/2/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-college-athletics.aspx), around 3.9% of high school volleyball players will compete in the NCAA, and 1.2% will go to a D1 school. There are other opportunities to play collegiately at non-NCAA programs too. So doing a little back of the envelope math for the class of 2025 (current 17s who have been recruitable for over a year), if you look at AES, there were 132 CHRVA 16s teams last season (using last year because the number of girls playing club tends to drop off after 16s - according to AES there were only 84 17s CHRVA teams this season). Assuming an average of 12 players per team (obviously some have more and some have less and some girls don't play with the age group that aligns with their HS grad year) x 132 teams, that means there were around 1,584 girls playing club volleyball in the region from the class of 2025. Using the NCAA percentages, there would be approximately 62 girls expected to play NCAA volleyball from CHRVA. Of those, about 19 would be expected to be D1.

Now looking at the data from PrepDig (which is probably not 100% accurate but not sure of a better source), from the class of 2025 there are currently 24 CHRVA players committed to play D1 indoor volleyball. In terms of the club breakdown (using the club these players are currently shown as playing for), 14 are from Metro, 4 are from VA Elite, 3 are from Paramount, 1 is from MVSA, 1 is from CEVA, and 1 is from Blue Ridge. There are 4 D3 commitments shown as well, but D3 schools tend to recruit later so this is probably not at all reflective of what the final tally will be be for this class year.

So what does this data suggest? CHRVA seems to be outperforming expectations in terms of the number of D1 commits (24 committed versus 19 expected). The breakdown of commits from CHRVA clubs is pretty lopsided with Metro having the majority of players committed to play D1.

So in terms of the discussion of how to improve the level of CHRVA teams on the national level I'm not sure what actions the region could take. Obviously if the ~7 non-starters on the Metro Travel teams were distributed among other competitive teams, that might increase parity within the region a little bit but I don't know if it would result in any improvement in how any of these teams perform against open teams from other regions. And it's not clear how CHRVA could do this anyway - USAV caps the roster size at 15 and I doubt CHRVA would be allowed to set a lower cap. It's also not reasonable to expect individual players who want to play D1 volleyball to go to another club if they get an offer from Metro. The data suggests that playing for a Metro Travel team does give an advantage in getting recruited and pretty much every player on a Metro Travel team hopes to play in college.

Having watched some of the better open teams at 16s, 17s, and 18s, there are very few teams that are taller or more athletic than Metro Travel teams, but the teams that beat Metro tend to be better at ball control (i.e., defense and setting) and make fewer unforced errors. That is often assumed to be from coaching or other training that these teams must do better, and that might be part of the difference, but I also think the point that was made earlier in this thread about the number of first generation players in CHRVA versus regions where volleyball has been popular for decades and one or both parents played competitive volleyball is probably true. Also, the importance Metro places on height and raw athleticism when choosing teams often means they are taking players without as many years playing experience than those that are playing on these other teams and that difference in experience/skill is their advantage.

The problem of how to improve the level of CHRVA volleyball is a challenging one. Lots of issues have been identified in many posts here, but I haven't seen any realistic solutions offered yet and I'm not sure there is a silver bullet. Unfortunately, I think any improvement is going to be slow and incremental. Assuming the level of interest in volleyball continues to increase, more girls will play volleyball and more teams/clubs will be created to provide a place for them to play. Hopefully most of these teams will provide good experiences for their players and some will emerge as alternatives to the status quo.

There are three atleast from VAJRs that are D1- Georgia State, JMU, UVA.

From the class of 2025? Haven't seen those reported anywhere.

Paramount’s 18s team this season had 12 D1 commitments. Their 18s last season had 11 D1 commitments. Paramount and metro are the only two clubs putting up that # of Division 1 commitments. Metro has some really tall/talented athletes, so those players typically end up at Power 5 schools, but those supremely talented players would probably end up at the same place regardless. It’s more so who you believe will develop your daughter into a better player. Paramount does more with less talent; Metro does less with more talent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/2/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-college-athletics.aspx), around 3.9% of high school volleyball players will compete in the NCAA, and 1.2% will go to a D1 school. There are other opportunities to play collegiately at non-NCAA programs too. So doing a little back of the envelope math for the class of 2025 (current 17s who have been recruitable for over a year), if you look at AES, there were 132 CHRVA 16s teams last season (using last year because the number of girls playing club tends to drop off after 16s - according to AES there were only 84 17s CHRVA teams this season). Assuming an average of 12 players per team (obviously some have more and some have less and some girls don't play with the age group that aligns with their HS grad year) x 132 teams, that means there were around 1,584 girls playing club volleyball in the region from the class of 2025. Using the NCAA percentages, there would be approximately 62 girls expected to play NCAA volleyball from CHRVA. Of those, about 19 would be expected to be D1.

Now looking at the data from PrepDig (which is probably not 100% accurate but not sure of a better source), from the class of 2025 there are currently 24 CHRVA players committed to play D1 indoor volleyball. In terms of the club breakdown (using the club these players are currently shown as playing for), 14 are from Metro, 4 are from VA Elite, 3 are from Paramount, 1 is from MVSA, 1 is from CEVA, and 1 is from Blue Ridge. There are 4 D3 commitments shown as well, but D3 schools tend to recruit later so this is probably not at all reflective of what the final tally will be be for this class year.

So what does this data suggest? CHRVA seems to be outperforming expectations in terms of the number of D1 commits (24 committed versus 19 expected). The breakdown of commits from CHRVA clubs is pretty lopsided with Metro having the majority of players committed to play D1.

Unfortunately, your comparative numbers for HS to club to college are off by at least 3x. There are many more HS volleyball teams than there are club teams, and the NCAA HS numbers also include JV and freshman teams, not just varsity. There are 250+ in MD alone. Take two of the two most populated counties in CHRVA -- Montgomery and Fairfax. MOCO has 29 public HS each with 2 teams (V, JV) and 48 private HS (assume ~half have V and and a smaller number have JV). That's >100 HS teams just in Montgomery County alone. Fairfax County is roughly equivalent. So ~200 teams in just two counties. CHRVA covers all the way from Delaware to mid-VA and west to eastern Western VA and all of DC and MD. I don't know the actual number, but I would bet there are easily 500+ HS teams in the CHRVA region.

500x14 (HS teams carry more players) = 7000 players

How many CHRVA region players should play in:
Play in NCAA 7000 x 3.9% = 280
Play in D1 7000 x 1.2% = 84

CHRVA is nowhere even close to those numbers, or even 1/3 of those numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
According to the NCAA (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/2/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-college-athletics.aspx), around 3.9% of high school volleyball players will compete in the NCAA, and 1.2% will go to a D1 school. There are other opportunities to play collegiately at non-NCAA programs too. So doing a little back of the envelope math for the class of 2025 (current 17s who have been recruitable for over a year), if you look at AES, there were 132 CHRVA 16s teams last season (using last year because the number of girls playing club tends to drop off after 16s - according to AES there were only 84 17s CHRVA teams this season). Assuming an average of 12 players per team (obviously some have more and some have less and some girls don't play with the age group that aligns with their HS grad year) x 132 teams, that means there were around 1,584 girls playing club volleyball in the region from the class of 2025. Using the NCAA percentages, there would be approximately 62 girls expected to play NCAA volleyball from CHRVA. Of those, about 19 would be expected to be D1.

Now looking at the data from PrepDig (which is probably not 100% accurate but not sure of a better source), from the class of 2025 there are currently 24 CHRVA players committed to play D1 indoor volleyball. In terms of the club breakdown (using the club these players are currently shown as playing for), 14 are from Metro, 4 are from VA Elite, 3 are from Paramount, 1 is from MVSA, 1 is from CEVA, and 1 is from Blue Ridge. There are 4 D3 commitments shown as well, but D3 schools tend to recruit later so this is probably not at all reflective of what the final tally will be be for this class year.

So what does this data suggest? CHRVA seems to be outperforming expectations in terms of the number of D1 commits (24 committed versus 19 expected). The breakdown of commits from CHRVA clubs is pretty lopsided with Metro having the majority of players committed to play D1.

Unfortunately, your comparative numbers for HS to club to college are off by at least 3x. There are many more HS volleyball teams than there are club teams, and the NCAA HS numbers also include JV and freshman teams, not just varsity. There are 250+ in MD alone. Take two of the two most populated counties in CHRVA -- Montgomery and Fairfax. MOCO has 29 public HS each with 2 teams (V, JV) and 48 private HS (assume ~half have V and and a smaller number have JV). That's >100 HS teams just in Montgomery County alone. Fairfax County is roughly equivalent. So ~200 teams in just two counties. CHRVA covers all the way from Delaware to mid-VA and west to eastern Western VA and all of DC and MD. I don't know the actual number, but I would bet there are easily 500+ HS teams in the CHRVA region.

500x14 (HS teams carry more players) = 7000 players

How many CHRVA region players should play in:
Play in NCAA 7000 x 3.9% = 280
Play in D1 7000 x 1.2% = 84

CHRVA is nowhere even close to those numbers, or even 1/3 of those numbers.

PP here. Your criticism is fair re: the numbers of HS versus club athletes, although I don't see that you accounted for the fact that a HS team includes athletes from up to 4 class years while the analysis was for a single class year. I used CHRVA 16s data from last season in calculating the total number since the number of athletes participating in club volleyball tends to peak at 15s or 16s and there are a decent number of commitments from that class year to analyze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
PP here. Your criticism is fair re: the numbers of HS versus club athletes, although I don't see that you accounted for the fact that a HS team includes athletes from up to 4 class years while the analysis was for a single class year. I used CHRVA 16s data from last season in calculating the total number since the number of athletes participating in club volleyball tends to peak at 15s or 16s and there are a decent number of commitments from that class year to analyze.

Fair point. I should have done the math dividing by 4 to get a better approximation. I'm also pretty sure the number of HS players is low, because the region has more HS than I thought. For public schools its 220 in MD, 20 in DC, ~150-200 in northern VA, ~60 in Delaware = ~500 public schools alone. Here's some updated numbers, just for public schools:

500 schools x 2 teams x 14 players=14,000 players / 4 classes = 3,500 seniors.

Play in NCAA 3500 x 3.9% = 137
Play in D1 3500 x 1.2% = 42

So somewhere between 120-140 NCAA players and 35-40 D1 players is probably close for public schools. Add in private schools and its probably much higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So in terms of the discussion of how to improve the level of CHRVA teams on the national level I'm not sure what actions the region could take. Obviously if the ~7 non-starters on the Metro Travel teams were distributed among other competitive teams, that might increase parity within the region a little bit but I don't know if it would result in any improvement in how any of these teams perform against open teams from other regions. And it's not clear how CHRVA could do this anyway - USAV caps the roster size at 15 and I doubt CHRVA would be allowed to set a lower cap. It's also not reasonable to expect individual players who want to play D1 volleyball to go to another club if they get an offer from Metro. The data suggests that playing for a Metro Travel team does give an advantage in getting recruited and pretty much every player on a Metro Travel team hopes to play in college.

Overall, there is an advantage in playing for Metro Travel in getting recruited -- no argument there. But there is a lot of selection bias to get to your statement. First, the clubs that focus on recruiting marketing usually do not keep players that aren't going to play in college (read the earlier posts on the thread about players being cut from those teams). Second, some players that come into their older teams from other clubs are already being recruited. So while its true that their 17s & 18s have a near 100% recruiting success, its not true that their program has a 100% recruiting success.

If you are current parent of a player, of course its not reasonable to ask your DD to play for another club if D1 is her goal. But if you have a younger player and are reading this thread, we should be honest and acknowledge that a large number of players who start with the younger travel teams at Metro, VA Elite and to a lesser extent Paramount do not end up playing for them at U17 or U18. Part of that is player opting-out of the club, but just as much is the club opting-out of the player.