Local volleyball clubs head for Volleyball Festival

Sacramento has been a traditional destination every summer for some of the nation's best club volleyball teams.

Four teams from the Capital City Volleyball Club based in Carson City will also be making the trek to Sacramento. But this is also the last year that local clubs will have to leave the area to participate in the world's largest women's sporting event.

The Volleyball Festival will be moving from Sacramento to Reno next year. This year's Volleyball Festival will be held from June 29-July 5.

There will be 8,000 players from 800 teams competing in the event. Among those in the event will be Capital City's 16 and 15 Gold teams and 14 Allen and Monica clubs.

"This will be a lot of fun for them," Capital City head coach Steve George said. "I think our teams have improved dramatically over the course of the year."

Capital City's teams will face the "very worst" and "very best" teams in the nation at the Volleyball Festival, George said. He also said that the 16 and 15 gold teams have a chance to finish in the top third in their divisions.

The event coming to Reno should make a huge impact on area volleyball, George said.

"I think what it will do is open the eyes of people in Northern Nevada to the level of volleyball that can be played," George said.

He said the event will "bring volleyball more to the forefront in the area."

In basically three years of existence, Capital City has already shown that the level of Northern Nevada volleyball can reach that of the rest of the nation. Last year's Capital City 17 Gold team placed third at the U.S. Junior Olympics.

"There's no question there's enough good athletes in Northern Nevada to compete with any place as we showed last year," George said.

To show how far the club has come in three years, it was a disappointment that the same nucleus of players making up Capital City's 18 Gold team didn't make this year's U.S. Junior Olympics.

"But still there one of the better teams in the country," George said.

The team featured eight players who will move on to the college level. Fallon's Tristin Adams, a setter, and Carly Sorensen, a hitter, will play at the University of Nevada. Middle blocker Teal Ericson, who will be a senior at North Tahoe, will join them as she has committed to Nevada.

Douglas High middle blocker Emily Haas will play at the University of San Diego while Douglas teammate Brittany Addeo, a setter, will head to Adelphi University, a Division II school in New York. Carson High outside hitter Rachael DeRiemer will play at NAIA school Point Loma Nazarene University near San Diego.

Two Galena teammates will also move on. Joanna Hixon, who was recruited in volleyballl, will play basketball at Montana State while Whitney Dibble will play volleyball at Division II Seattle Pacific.

"People play club volleyball for a variety of reasons and one of the reasons is to try to obtain a college scholarship," George said. "I think it says a lot for what the players and parents have accomplished in three years."

George said the group of eighth and ninth graders now in the club are a talented bunch.

"They have the potential to succeed," George said. "We've got some really talented eighth and ninth graders that are definitely scholarship players down the road."

Charles Whisnand is the Nevada Appeal Sports Editor.