Anonymous wrote:NVVA has its own facility, but the quality of the teams and level of play have decreased over the years. I heard NVVA used to host a club tournament at the Open division in January and also a local area HS tournament. NVVA isn't mentioned among my daughter's peers as an option to tryout. What has happened to the club or organization?

My daughter and her friends play there. They are never going to be on the very top teams in the dmv and they are happy with the coaches at their levels. We like the set location.

Anonymous wrote:NVVA has its own facility, but the quality of the teams and level of play have decreased over the years. I heard NVVA used to host a club tournament at the Open division in January and also a local area HS tournament. NVVA isn't mentioned among my daughter's peers as an option to tryout. What has happened to the club or organization?

Probably their ridiculous high fees for level of play.

Bing Maps is telling me that the address used to be a Bed, Bath, and Beyond location. I'm not familiar with the location, but I presume there are other retailers there/nearby, since its at an I-66 exit.

I wonder if they'll be able to host single-day tournaments there.

Anonymous wrote:Just saw the news on Paramount's Instagram. Per their post, it looks like they have a brand-new, exclusive 8-court facility in the Manassas/Centreville area. That's a huge move for them. Very few clubs in our area have a dedicated practice facility, and for those that do, they don't have one of that size (8 courts).

Paramount is really expanding and becoming a bigger player in the DMV area.

NVVA has its own facility, but the quality of the teams and level of play have decreased over the years. I heard NVVA used to host a club tournament at the Open division in January and also a local area HS tournament. NVVA isn't mentioned among my daughter's peers as an option to tryout. What has happened to the club or organization?

Just saw the news on Paramount's Instagram. Per their post, it looks like they have a brand-new, exclusive 8-court facility in the Manassas/Centreville area. That's a huge move for them. Very few clubs in our area have a dedicated practice facility, and for those that do, they don't have one of that size (8 courts).

General understanding is that Mr. Cassel was not the owner of the Cassel’s complex”. The owner sold it to Amazon or Google - one of those large companies looking for more warehouse space. (Same thing happened to “the Campus” where Vienna elite used to practice).

Why did Cassel's move out from Herndon to Sterling in the first place? I see that the Sterling site is now not happening. Cassel's was the gym to go to for club practices, private lessons, and open gyms.

Per the website, "New location in Sterling fell through due to permit issues. Lee Cassel is actively looking for a new location and plans to reopen when he finds a new location."

http://www.casselssportscomplex.com/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were completely caught unaware and signed our DD up for the fall ECP league. It’s been unorganized and terrible. She’s still relatively new to volleyball and we don’t really understand what’s going on but there have been three changes in leadership in a month.

With the affluence of family in the DMV area, I'm surprised there isn't a good developmental program like A5 in the Atlanta area and TAV/Madfrog in TX. Those clubs are powerhouses, because they have year round programs for youth starting at 10U. They have players developed basic volleyball fundamental skills at a young age that progress into competitive U16-18 teams.

All of the DMV teams here have players going from one club to another and their basic volleyball skills are all over the place.

True. Some clubs/HS a bit farther out do the Gold Medal Squared training and their solid fundamentals really show that they have gone through a systematic training.

Heard one of the big dogs in our area is going to be announcing an exclusive, brand new facility very shortly.

Beach volleyball is going to be the next new thing. My daughter moved from indoor to beach and loves it. Took alot to get used to since there is a lot of responsibility on each player and there is No rest. She truly enjoys it

Anonymous wrote:The Chesapeake director of ECP, Chris Smith, (both DC and DE chapters) has left ECP and is forming a new club in both areas. It will be a branch of Renaissance VBC, based in Pittsburgh. This club will be up and running for this coming season- 2023-2024! Details regarding clinics/teams/tryouts should be posted over the next few days!

http://www.renaissancechesapeake.com/

Thank you for the important piece of info. as we were left in the dark taking pre-tryout clinics drastically changed from 20+ girls to 8!

Anonymous wrote:With the affluence of family in the DMV area, I'm surprised there isn't a good developmental program like A5 in the Atlanta area and TAV/Madfrog in TX. Those clubs are powerhouses, because they have year round programs for youth starting at 10U. They have players developed basic volleyball fundamental skills at a young age that progress into competitive U16-18 teams.

All of the DMV teams here have players going from one club to another and their basic volleyball skills are all over the place.

We moved into the DMV from one of the areas that had clubs like A5 and Madfrog, with programs starting as young a U5, rec leagues at U7 and club at U9 and were surprised the DMV region didn't have a similar setup.

In terms of player development in the DMV very few offer U10 club teams. U11 is growing quickly though. Last year MVSA, MDJrs, MOCO, ECP, and MEVC--I'm sure there were more--all had at least one U11 team, a huge increase over prior years. If you look at the big club fall programs you get a pretty good idea of where the development is happening -- some of those programs have hundreds of players all the way down to U9. The problem is that there aren't enough coaches and/or facilities to replicate those fall programs throughout the year.

Not to start a big debate (please don't restart the "best clubs" arguments), but what is different in the DMV from where we moved from is that the most of the that compete at open levels and for USAV bids in the DMV haven't historically put much effort into developing players early (U11 or below). Our experience was that club directors do know which clubs in the area are best at developing solid fundamentals and skills in players. The "top" clubs tend to try to recruit players away from those clubs, even before they move players up from within their own club structure. None of them ran U10/U11 teams. They also only run 1 team, so there are no club development options for players that will be great, but aren't there yet. Clubs like Madfrog, Austin Skyline, etc. have a completely different approach -- fielding lots of teams at U12+ age groups and teams all the way down to U9 so players really do have the option to develop within one club. Lots of clubs that we talk about all the time on this board love to post about their recruiting success, but what they never tell you is where those players started their club journey. If you developed at Club A for 4-5 years and then jumped to Club B for 1 year to get recruited, where did the development happen?

Even in areas where A5, TAV, and Madfrog type clubs exist there is a lot of movement between the top teams at those clubs so the DMV isn't unique in this, but it is much more extreme here than where we moved from. Take a look at the MaxPreps, AVCA and PrepDig top player lists for the DMV last year. In U15 & U16 and you'll see that they are essentially spread across the top clubs in the area. U17 & U18 they tend to compress down into a smaller number of clubs because there are fewer players playing in those age groups, but they are still spread out. I'd love to see a list of where those players started their club journey.

Anonymous wrote:We were completely caught unaware and signed our DD up for the fall ECP league. It’s been unorganized and terrible. She’s still relatively new to volleyball and we don’t really understand what’s going on but there have been three changes in leadership in a month.

With the affluence of family in the DMV area, I'm surprised there isn't a good developmental program like A5 in the Atlanta area and TAV/Madfrog in TX. Those clubs are powerhouses, because they have year round programs for youth starting at 10U. They have players developed basic volleyball fundamental skills at a young age that progress into competitive U16-18 teams.

All of the DMV teams here have players going from one club to another and their basic volleyball skills are all over the place.

FPYCparent wrote:I find the Paramount announcement (two teams in sever age groups) interesting. I think I've read here that the club has previously attracted players that ultimately didn't play much for their teams. Now, outside of national qualifiers, they'll have two Open-level teams. Is there that much top-level talent? Will all of that talent get to play meaningful minutes?

I also wonder if the 15-2 team, for example, outperforms the 15-1 team in the events leading up to the big qualifiers. Does the 15-1 team still play in the Open division at the big events? Or, will the rosters between the two teams remain fluid throughout the club season. Will players get offers for a specific team (-1 or -2)? How will coaching work, as I don't think any information like that has been publicly shared.

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I also find Renaissance Chesapeake becoming a wrinkle in the (original) The St. James - to - EC Power + MOJO - now without MOJO - now without EC Power storyline.

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I don't have any first-hand interaction with any of these clubs, but wow ... there seems to be a lot going on ... and if you don't have access to inside information, you can easily be caught unaware.

The club director has had a reputation for making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She has historically attracted other club’s cast offs and mounding them into great teams, now the club’s reputation has grown sufficiently that they are attracting top talent and the results are impressive. Their style of coaching is not everyone’s cup of tea, however nobody can deny that she gets results. I have no connection to Paramount btw - DD played at another of the top clubs who would routinely cut kids “not up to it”, watch them go to Paramount as see them finish higher in big tournaments than they did.