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Seattle Prep Defeats Mercer Island, Blanchet, Issaquah, and Holy Names win BidsNov. 4, 2001: Match Results: Quarter finals: Mount Si defeated Issaquah 15-13, 15-6 Bishop Blanchet defeated Holy Names, 15-11, 15-6 Loser Quarter Final Eliminations: Issaquah defeated Bainbridge, 7-15, 15-8, 15-5, Bainbridge out. Holy Names defeated Ballard, 15-7, 15-8, Ballard out. Semi Finals Mercer Island defeated Mount Si 15-7, 15-12. Seattle Prep defeated Bishop Blanchet, 15-11, 14-16, 16-14 Loser Semi Finals (no crossovers): Issaquah defeated Mount Si 9-15, 15-7, 15-13 Bishop Blanchet defeated Holy Names, 15-8, 15-1 Championship Seattle Prep defeated Mercer Island, 15-8, 15-4 Third and Fourth Bishop Blanchet defeated Issaquah 4-15, 15-10, 15-6 Fifth Holy Names defeated Mount Si 15-9, 15-12, Mount Si out. Five Seeds to State Tournament: 1. Seattle Prep 2. Mercer Island 3. Bishop Blanchet 4. Issaquah 5. Holy Names
WIAA 3A State Volleyball TournamentPool assignments will be drawn following completion of all the State's District Tournaments. Sixteen teams will be invited, five from the Sea-King District. The format, Thursday pool play followed by Saturday playoffs, will be the same as last year.
Previous Articles:Eight Teams to Saturday's PlayoffsNov. 2, 2001: In close play marked by a number of three game and deuce matches, the number one seeds avoided upset, and Holy Names, Mount Si, Bainbridge and Ballard all finished second in their pools to preserve their hopes for an invite to the 3A State Tournament. Four teams were eliminated from the tournament, but they did not go quietly. Three of the four took at least a game off an advancing opponent before falling. The initial bracket play of the first place finishers from the pools featured Seattle Prep defeating Issaquah 15-10, 15-13, and Mercer Island defeating Bishop Blanchet 15-12, 4-15, 15-10. Blanchet had upset Prep in the Metro Tournament last Thursday, and Issaquah had defeated Mercer Island in the KingCo Tournament. So the number two seeds from the League tournaments have now assumed the favored spots on the upper and lower brackets. Which is to say that Prep and Mercer Island advance to the semi-finals on Saturday. The second place finishers in pool also played their initial brackets. Holy Names defeated Bainbridge 15-8, 13-15, 15-12, and will play Blanchet in the quarter finals at 1:00 on Saturday. Likewise Mount Si defeated Ballard 15-7, 14-16, 15-7, and will play Issaquah. Three of the four initial matches involved crossovers between KingCo and Metro opponents, and two of those crossover matches went to three games. So the outcomes certainly weren't preordained. But as a result of these matches, the semi-finals will involve the KingCo teams Mercer Island, Issaquah and Mount Si on one bracket, and the Metro teams Seattle Prep, Holy Names and Blanchet on the other. No team has yet earned a guaranteed a berth at States. But the cross-over matches that will be played between the losers of the quarter-finals and Ballard and Bainbridge will be "loser out". And the two teams losing in the semi-finals will find themselves in a four team cross-over bracket with just three seeds available. So there is plenty of intense volleyball still ahead for these well-matched teams. Thursday Pool Play, Eight Teams to Saturday's PlayoffsOct. 30, 2001: The twelve-team Sea-King 3A Volleyball Tournament begins with four, three-team pools that play on Thursday afternoon and evening, Nov. 1st. The assignment of the pools to either Mercer Island or Newport High Schools was made on Monday, Oct. 29th, following the completion of the Kingco and Metro League Tournaments. As you can see in the table below, both Mercer Island and Newport, Sea-King District hosts this year, play at home. This was intentional, and it is an adjustment to the initial tournament design, which had both Mercer Island and Newport in Pool D. This unwanted combination was a result of the final KingCo standings which could not be predicted. However, the teams are separated by this well-considered adjustment which preserves the initial pairings of second and third place teams. Given the circumstances, this is about as fair a modification as could be made. And it also preserves the A/C and B/D bracket split which is important because this separates the Metro and Kingco first seeds until the brackets meet in the finals, which is again good tournament design. Preliminary Pools ... Top Two into Playoffs
The three rounds of pool play will begin on Thursday at 3:30 pm with seed 1 playing seed 3, followed by seed 2 versus seed 3 at 5:00 pm, and finishing with seed 1 versus seed 2 at 6:30 pm. Provision has been made for the possibility of a three-way (1-1, 1-1, and 1-1) tie within a pool, and as is usual in our post-season play, it involves one-game matches to 15 using rally point scoring. In a change to the initial tournament design, bracket play will begin immediately following pool play at 8:30 pm, Thursday night. One might think that the top two teams from each pool will be seeded into simple eight team playoffs. But there is a hitch. Instead of playing a standard bracket with all eight teams participating in the quarter finals, the winners of pools A and C, and the winners of pools B and D will play a regular match of two out of three games to 15 (regular scoring, 17 point cap) immediately following pool play, at 8:30 pm. The winners of these matches will be given byes all the way to the semifinals at 4:00 pm on Saturday. The second place teams from each pool will also play a two-out-of-three match against its paired pool on Thursday night. The winners of these second place matches will then crossover to play the losers of the first place matches in the first round of play on Saturday. "Crossing over" as used here means that the loser of the A/C first place match will play the winner of the B/D second place match. Saturday's bracket play is at Newport High School, and it begins at 1:00 pm. As mentioned above, the losers of the first place matches from Thursday night play the winners of the second place matches. The winners of these matches then go to the semi-finals with a chance to win Districts. The losers of these matches play the losers of their cross-over partner's second place match from Thursday night. This is a "do or die" match, loser out. The two survivors of these 'do or die" matches then play a four-team, cross-over bracket with the losers of the semifinals for the third, fouth, and fifth (and last) seed to the State tournament. The deciding matches for these lower seeds will be played at 7:00 pm. The Championship match is scheduled for 8:30 pm. This tournament has been intelligently designed and fairly modified to accommodate the requirements of the host teams. Sea-King teams have a couple of days of great volleyball to look forward to. |
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