[Non Monarchs] NCAA Women's Volleyball

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

A friend of mine has a (FREE) ticket available for the National Championship match to be held @ ARCO on Saturday, December 15th @ 6pm. About the only thing I know about the seat right now is that it is in the upper level somewhere.

If you are interested, send me a PM by Tuesday and I will give you more details and we can make arrangements to get the ticket to you.

We'll know by about 10pm tonight which 4 teams will be coming to Sacramento on Thursday to play for the national championship. ESPNU is the place to be if you're interested, all 4 regional finals will be broadcast throughout the day today.

Those needing a broadcaster fix, Krista Blunk will be commentating the action out of the Gainesville, FL region @ 1pm: (4)Texas and (5)USC

@ approximately 3:30pm the University Park, PA regional final will get under way (3) Penn St. and (unseeded)BYU

then @ 6pm the first of two local teams will play for the right to come up I-80, (10) Cal-Berkeley will try to upset the reigning national champion (2) Nebraska in the Madison, WI regional.

and finally, this year's overall tournament #1 seed Stanford Cardinal will take on (8) UCLA (tickets still available, come to Maples tonight!) @ 8:30pm.

I also have a partial schedule of events/activities taking place around the arrival of the volleyball championships...

Weds, Dec 12th is practice day for all 4 teams

• Doors open @ 10am and practices will run until 4:15
• Admission is free and first 500 folks in that day receive a Molten mini-volleyball.

Thurs, Dec 13th is semi finals day.

• National Semi-Final Game 1 begins @ 6pm (ESPN2)
• National Semi-Final Game 2 follows 30 minutes after the conclusion of game 1. (ESPN2)
• Doors open @ 4:30 and the first 1,500 folks through the doors receive a free championship sling bag.
• Semi-Final team autograph sessions on the concourse with free posters approximately 8:15pm for teams involved in semi-final #1 and approximately 10:30pm for teams involved in semi-final #2

Sat, Dec 15th is championship match day.

• Game begins @ 6pm (ESPN2).
• Doors open @ 4:30 and the first 1,500 folks through the gate receive a free championship key ring.
• From 4:30-5:30 the 2007 All Americans will be signing autographs on the concourse.

On the ARCO concourse is the "Be A NCAA Champion" exhibit: bring a camera and take your picture with an NCAA trophy. This runs from 4:30pm to the end of the session both Thursday and Saturday.


Sounds like fun huh? Sure it does, a trophy will be raised again in Sacramento and it will feel like old times!

Come out and represent Sacramento! Support the championships coming to the region, we're getting a Women's NCAA Basketball regional in 2010, this will be a great precusor to that, because it's well an actual championship, with a trophy and lots of happy people with t-shirts and caps jumping on one another happily...which again seems pretty familiar huh?

Tickets still available...

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

2 tickets to Sac punched, 2 more to go

USC is on its way, making the trip up I-5 to face either Stanford or UCLA, Penn State is now on its way to face either Cal or Nebraska.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

All tickets punched, we have our field of four!

In yet another dominating showing by the Pac-10, this conference advanced three of the final four teams still left standing and almost even more fitting its nearly an all Cali affair. Special congratulations to the California Golden Bears for making their first trip ever to the National Semi Finals. And for making a very spirited run through their region and for taking out the defending national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers in a match sweep!

The semis will be:

(3) Penn St and (10) California
(1) Stanford and (5) USC

You want to watch women jump out of a gym, come to ARCO this week - there will be some serious athleticism on display.

 

[6th]

I have had just an enormously busy weekend, so I missed all of the volleyball. Dangit!! Then I saw the paper this morning and find that Penn State beat Stanford for the title. Stanford are all-so-rans for 2 years now, I think. While I have nothing against Penn State, I was disappointed for Stanford, and all the other CA teams that made it to the "final four."

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Yep, it was a disappointing way for Stanford to have bowed out but it was a helluva match - Stanford had a chance (in theory) to have pulled off a historic comeback in a championship match (in the rally scoring era) by coming back from a 2 games to none deficit to take the title, but their inconsistency reared its ugly head and Penn St rolled the hell out of them in game 5.

Congratulations to the Nittany Lions!

And Congratulations to Sacramento and its Sports Commission. If I got the numbers correct, this championship was the second highest attended 2-day championship in the history of women's NCAA volleyball - second only to the record set by volleyball fanatics in Nebraska and their sea of red last year. Way to represent!

We're going to get a women's basketball tourney regional in 2010, we should be more than ready to rock ARCO again to that same tune.

 

[StevenHW]

I have had just an enormously busy weekend, so I missed all of the volleyball. Dangit!! Then I saw the paper this morning and find that Penn State beat Stanford for the title. Stanford are all-so-rans for 2 years now, I think. While I have nothing against Penn State, I was disappointed for Stanford, and all the other CA teams that made it to the "final four."

I didn't attend the tournament, but...6th is correct that Stanford's women's v-ball team lost last year's Finals to the Nebraska Cornholers, er, Cornhuskers.

But according to this morning's SacBee article, that game last year took place in Omaha, not too far from Lincoln, the back yard of the Univ. of Nebraska. So, perhaps the home crowd might have been a factor then.

But yesterday's loss to the Nittany Lions must have been a big letdown for the Cardinal, considering that it was in NoCal, and I'm sure lots of their fans made the trip up here.

Anyway, congrats to Penn State!

 

[StevenHW]

...We're going to get a women's basketball tourney regional in 2010, we should be more than ready to rock ARCO again to that same tune.

...and maybe we'll get a chance to see Vicki Baugh! (assuming the Vols are in the West Regional)

 

[StevenHW]

From today's SacBee:

Here's a teaser:

"It's grown throughout the years, it's a great place for junior volleyball (and) there are thousands of kids playing here," said coach John Dunning, whose Cardinal fell to Penn State 3-2 in the final. "I spent a lot of time out here, and I'm proud that it is in the valley, and I think they did a great job."

Penn State coach Russ Rose echoed those thoughts, saying he couldn't have been more pleased with the overall operation of the tournament, specifically thanking Maloof Sports and Entertainment. After winning the championship, Rose said Disneyland isn't his destination.

"I want to go to the Palms," he said jokingly.

http://www.sacbee.com/100/story/572604.html

Kudos to the Sacramento Sports Commission for doing a great job on this event. Hopefully, we'll see more NCAA tournaments (regardless of sport), like the one we'll see for the women's b-ball in 2010!