Club Four sending two teams to USA Volleyball junior national championships in Dallas

QUINCY — The confidence the Club Four Volleyball Club’s 14 Boost players gained from a successful showing at the 2024 USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship at the 13U level has helped them earn to a return trip to nationals this year.

All but one of the players on this year’s roster was on the team last season that finished third after not earning a bid, but applying for an at-large bid.

“It definitely boosted our confidence because going into it, we were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t get a bid. All these teams got bids,’” said Paisley Patterson, a right side who attends Barry Western. “There were people like, ‘Oh, you’re paying to go?’ Then we came out and got third, and that drove us this year. We want to do even better this year.”

The tournament will be played June 25-28 at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, the same location as last year’s 13U national tournament.

Morgan Mueller, an outside hitter and incoming freshman at Quincy Notre Dame, said last year’s team had plenty of butterflies ahead of their trek to Dallas. 

Mueller expects a different mentality from her and her teammates this time around.

“I feel like we’re not as nervous this year, and we’re more excited,” Mueller said. “Last year was our first year playing together, and this year, we’re better friends and used to the place, so I feel like we’re going to do well this year.”

Sarah Janes, the 14 Boost coach, anticipates the same thing.

“Last year, they went in and were a little bit timid, but I think they’re going to kill it this year,” Janes said. “At least I expect them to.”

This Club Four team earned a bid to the national tournament by finishing seventh in the Donna Mayer Gateway Big Event in St. Louis in April. The club went 5-2 in the three-day tournament.

“We’re definitely playing with a lot of confidence at these tournaments this year,” said Cadence Smith, a middle blocker and incoming sophomore at QND. “We just keep working harder and harder, and it keeps getting higher and higher. Every time we do well in tournaments, it just gets better.”

The 14 Boost team will not be Club Four’s lone representative in Dallas, though. The 16 Boost team also qualified for the national tournament by winning the the Show Me Qualifier on April 14.

“A lot of us were emotional,” said Leah Knudson, the team’s libero and an incoming junior at Quincy High School. “Winning a qualifier was one of our goals at the beginning of the season.”

Knudson’s QHS and 16 Boost teammate, Madison Loos, missed the first day of that qualifier — Quincy’s prom was the same day — but she and her family left in the wee hours of the morning on April 13 to make it to Kansas City in time.

“It was tough, but energy drinks got me through,” Loos said. “I did sleep on the way there.”

Loos got enough rest to help her team reach Monday’s championship game against the KC Voltage.

“We walked up to our court for the championship game and there were these two huge girls,” Loos said. “We never thought, ‘Oh, we don’t have a chance,’ but we just went out there and gave it our all.”

Club Four was not intimidated. It won 26-24, 25-20, punctuating a bid to nationals.

“I was just so proud of everybody, and I started sobbing,” said Kate Gramke, an outside hitter from QND. “I was so excited.”

Like the 14s, the players on the 16 Boost roster have been to nationals, as well, having gone last year. Josie Stanford, who coaches the 16 and 18 Boost teams, said that experience along with scrimmages against some of the 18 Boost players leading up to the tournament have prepared her players for what lies ahead.

“We’re doing everything in this gym to make us ready for Dallas,” Stanford said. “Last year, we prepared, but we weren’t as prepared as we’d like to be.”

That has changed this year.

“We’re trying to prove ourselves and show who we are,” Gramke said. “Not many people know of us, so we have to make a good impression.”