Rehoboth Beach volleyball tournament jump-starts summer
The Mid-Atlantic Volleyball organization pulled off another successful round of fun, competitive volleyball up and down the beaches of Rehoboth May 13-14.
In women’s AAA doubles, the top-level tournament division, young sisters Madie and Sarah Wood of Glen Mills, Pa., defended their title and again took top honors. Sarah was the dominant spiker and blocker for her team, while Madie was the back-row specialist patrolling the entire court.
In the semifinals, the Wood sisters won a close match with Savannah Siegrist and Elaina Millaway, but the finals were not so close, as the Woods duo defeated the experienced team of Sarah Wiener and Krista Kraskura by 14 points. After the match, Wiener said the rain was coming down so hard leading up to finals that they offered to skip the match, but the Wood sisters preferred to play it out.
In the top-division AAA men’s doubles, a noteworthy story for this year’s event was that the winning team from last spring split up and competed with different partners. Cam Rodrigues played with Jackson Herbert of Ashburn, Va., and made it to the finals against his former partner Carson Barnes playing with Ayden Keeter of Virginia Beach, Va. In the rain-soaked finals, Barnes and Keeter prevailed 21-17. Rodrigues is the player to watch in these events. Whether it’s men’s doubles or coed doubles, he’s always at or near the top. Barnes is only one year out of Indian River High School and has a bright future in the sport.
In other Saturday action, Michael Beiler and David Schryber won men’s A doubles. Katherine von Ofenheim and Katie Frei were a dominant force in women’s A doubles and cruised to win a total of 16 teams in that popular division. In the large contingent of men’s B/BB doubles, Rodrigo Sorto and Yeferson Figueroa of Maryland prevailed in the finals against Richard Schafer and Britt Kern of Arlington, Va. There were 15 teams of women’s BB doubles, where Sandy Chou and Cindy Zheng squeezed out a finals victory over Katharine Altman and Abigail Lee. On Saturday, there was action in girls’ under-16 B level. The winning trio was Alexandra McCorkle, Anabelle Herman and Jaslyn Dawkins from Appoquinimink School District prevailing over Madison Robino, Phoebe Kelly and Sophia Falasca.
For Sunday play, the rain was gone and the sun came out, but there was a persistent heavy wind through most of the day. In Sunday’s top division of coed AAA doubles, Christine Schlegelmilch and Cam Rodrigues prevailed over local player Elaina Millaway (Greenwood) and Jackson Herbert in a hard-fought battle. Millaway is a young player making a name for herself in USA Volleyball, where Schlegelmilch is a seasoned player with a proven track record in top-level, East Coast beach competitions. An interesting sidebar is that the men’s half of both teams were partners in Saturday’s AAA doubles.
The level of play in MAV tournaments seems to improve each year, and this year was no different. For example, in the coed doubles A division, the players truly excelled. The coed A doubles winner was the team of Jon Lewis and Katie Frei, who bested Tito Morales and Ashley Miranda in the finals. Sunday’s coed BB doubles was the largest group of players, with 20 teams in the mix. The deep playoff bracket resulted in a final with Sebastian Oliel and Belen Leon of Washington, D.C., matched up against Ryan Pijai and Svetlana Ber of Reston, Va. The finals were close at 25-21, with Oliel and Leon prevailing.
In juniors triples, the Delaware team of Emma and Julia Cleveland along with Adriana Morris came out on top with a record of 9-1 in pool play. These young ladies dominated the finals by a score of 21-8. In coed 6s, the team of Bob Billman, Diane Billman, Kathy Bentz, Brenda Allen, Bobby Parker, Tuyet Parker and Shawn Bartman showed excellent outdoor beach skills and came away with the victory after only two losses.
MAV again demonstrated it could expertly handle a large event and will do it again in September. More bracket results can be found at mavolleyball.org.
