By Lisa Byers
Meadville Tribune
Aug. 17, 2010 7:00 a.m. —
There tends to be plenty of argument each spring when the All-Region and All-District 10 boys volleyball teams are released.
This year was no different, and Meadville setter and outside hitter Ian Phillips happened to be the main subject of those arguments. Phillips, to the surprise of many District 10 coaches was not named to either team and not even nominated for one, despite being a key ingredient in the Bulldogs’ best season in 45 years.
Turns out, the best was yet to come.
Not only did Phillips eventually land a spot on the Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association’s state championship all-tournament and Finest Forty teams, he was also one of just 10 players selected to play for the Ohio Valley Region at the 2010 Boys’ High Performance Championship Tournament in Wisconsin Dells, Wis. last month.
Phillips made the team following a tryout against players from other high schools in the Ohio Valley Region, which encompasses Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The team was coached by Ohio State University assistant coach Tim Embaugh, Premier Volleyball coach Rocky Koenig and Shawn Parsell. Players in addition to Phillips, who plays club ball for Tool City Volleyball Club, were: Hilliard Darby’s Jacob East and St. Charles’ Andrew Sellan, who play for the Vanguard club; Centerville’s John Glover and Samuel Sheers, McNicholas’ James Hofman and St. Xavier’s Matthew Kues from Cincinnati Attack; Lakota West’s Dylan Kembre from Cincinnati Classics; and St. Edward’s Andrew Winter of SouthWest Volleyball Club.
The team trained for three days beginning on July 16 at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio and then at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio on July 23 and 24 before boarding a bus for Wisconsin Dells, Wis. to compete against 14 other teams at the Boys’ High Performance Championship Tournament hosted by the Chula Vista Resort July 26 through 30.
The competition included USA Volleyball region teams from Hawaii, Wisconsin, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Florida, in addition to a team from Chile and seven USA national teams. Ohio Valley wound up finishing with the third best record in the tournament and in fifth place overall.
“It was amazing,” said Phillips, Ohio Valley’s starting setter. “(It was) the best experience in my volleyball career as far as competition and level of play.”
Ohio Valley finished at 7-2. It’s lone two losses came against USA BYA2 Gold (25-18, 25-21, 27-29, 25-21) and USA BYA2 Red (25-16, 24-26, 25-20, 25-14). USA BYA2 Red wound up winning the tournament with a perfect 8-0 record. It lost just three sets along the way. One of those losses came against Ohio Valley in what Phillips described as the highlight of the tournament.
“It was the hardest game we knew we would play,” he said. “It was against the best USA team in the tournament and the best team in the nation period. No one was able to even win one game out of five against them.”
USA BYA2 Red kept that streak alive with a relatively easy 25-16 win in the first set.
“We were playing like we were scared of them,” Phillips said. “But the second game, the team played so much better and started to make plays you never thought could be made and (we) ended up winning.”
Ohio Valley lost the next two games and the match.
“We didn’t go back to the hotel with the attitude like we lost,” Phillips said. “We went back saying we just took a game from a team that wasn’t supposed to lose anything and we just proved that they could and we were the ones that did it.”
USA BYA2 Red included Aaron Russell (Ellicott City, Md.) and Parker Brown (Corona Del Mar, Calif.), who were competing for the third time at the USA Volleyball High Performance Tournament.
USA BYA2 Gold finished third at the tournament behind Chile.
“It was a tremendous experience,” Phillips said. “I was pushed hard to make my skills the way they needed to be so I could successfully play on this team, and I definitely grew as a player.”
The Ohio Valley Region, according to its Web site, is recognized as the largest regional association of USA Volleyball with 1,466 girls teams and 61 boys teams.
