Reply to new (confused!) volleyball parent - looking for Montgomery County (Bethesda-area+) feedback

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In Bethesda, she will be attending BCC, Whitman, or Walter Johnson. These are all good high school teams.

Next week, her high school coaches will evaluate her during tryouts.

[b]If she makes varsity as a freshman, she should attend Metro and Paramount clinics in the fall, as she may have great potential and could make the MVSA or MOCO first teams.[/b]

If she makes JV, she may make the MVSA or MOCO second or third teams, and she should try to attend MOCO's Club Prep Sessions for example:
https://www.mocovc.org/clubprep

If she doesn't make JV, MEVC, Platform, and Academy may be her most realistic options. She should try to attend fall clinics by these clubs. I believe MEVC and Platform have 2 and 3 15U teams respectively, and Academy has 1.[/quote]

This entire post is completely hilarious, especially the bolded part. You forgot to mention that she should try out for Metro if she is a starter on Varsity. You do realize that the Bethesda area is full of MVSA, MOCO, Platform, and MEVC players, right? Do you believe that a freshmen with no club experience will make the varsity team? [b]This is the type of advice that gets people's hopes high, just to crash during tryouts.[/b]

Even the advice conditional on the acceptance in the JV team is out of whack. You can be a starter on the JV team and not be able to make MVSA or MOCO. If you make it to the JV team because they need a few bench warmers after they ran out of club players who are trying out, then you are clearly not going to make MOCO or MVSA. [/quote]
It's pretty much too late to prepare for HS tryouts. At this point, hopefully she makes some level of her HS program so that she can get lots of touches between now and club tryouts.

I agree it's important to have realistic expectations. If your DD is "tall" in regular life, it's certainly an advantage for volleyball but the bar for what's tall is a little different. A 5'9" 9th grader might be one of the tallest girls in her class, but for a high level volleyball team that's not considered tall at all. In terms of skills and athleticism, one way to get a sense for what high level volleyball looks like is to attend a clinic intended for the top team at one of the local clubs. For Metro Travel teams, these are typically on Saturdays or Sundays at Ritchie Park Elementary in Rockville - Metro hasn't published the dates/times or opened registration for fall clinics yet.  These clinics are generally really intense and competitive and can you give you a sense of the type of volleyball being played at a particular age group. If you're new to this, the level of play for the top 14 and 15 year olds can be pretty shocking. I've talked to many parents who thought their DD was pretty good from a HS JV team or a rec league but who then realized they were not even close to the same level when on the court at one of these clinics. 
   
On the plus side for your DD, there is often a big influx of girls at U15 which results from HS coaches (whether varsity, JV, or 9th grade) encouraging players to play club meaning there are lots of girls new to club volleyball at 15s. As has been discussed, 9th graders are typically U15 but if your DD has a late birthday (after July 1) they could potentially play U14. That said, absent some compelling special circumstances, I don't see an advantage to playing the age group younger than their grade level. In most cases, the level of volleyball at U14 is going to be lower than U15. Obviously, Metro 14 Travel, Paramount 14-1s, or MVSA 14-1s are probably going to be better than a 15-2s teams at the clubs being discussed, but in general you'd expect more from a U15 team than a U14 team.

Seems like you've been getting somewhat educated on the whole process for how club volleyball works, but since you say you're new  perhaps a good place to start is knowing that CHRVA (our local USA Volleyball Region) sets the dates when clubs can hold tryouts. For this year, for girls 15 and older they are from October 31, 2025 - November 4, 2025. So every club in the area will be having tryouts during that same time. Since you're looking for your DD's first club, expect to tryout at several different clubs - it's absolutely possible but can be challenging to schedule since most clubs will be having tryouts on Saturday, November 1 and Sunday, November 2 so be prepared to attend multiple tryouts in a single day.

With that in mind, try and get to clinics of the clubs on your list between now and then. That could mean going to multiple clinics on the same day or weekend. Better if you can get to multiple clinics over multiple weeks for the clubs that seem like the best fit. For many clubs, tryouts are more of a technicality as they have been evaluating players throughout the fall and already have a sense of who they are going to make offers to. That said, don't assume that every roster is already filled with players returning to the same club from last year.  Players move clubs for a variety of reasons and clubs don't always get every player they are hoping to recruit.

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