What a last day of wave 1.  18s, 16s, 13s, 12s champions were crowned but not before some drama unfolded.  

Volleyball Mag Championship Bracket Pick-em  (join us in trying to pick winners of 2025 16 and 18 open championship brackets) was interestin  

16 Open – challonge.com/nt05vizt
18 Open – challonge.com/zp0yfzha

18 Open – Results | Standings

#1 MB Surf won the national championship after a dominating Day 4 run in which they did not drop a single set and did not give up more than 21 points in any set.  In quarterfinals they beat #5 SCVC 2-0 and in a very similar fashion then went on to beat #3 Bay to Bay in the semi finals.  In the final, they beat #2 Balboa Bay in the final in a comfortable fashion (2-0) (25-18, 25-15) 

Match of the day was the quarterfinal match of #2 Balboa Bay vs. #5 WPVC with Balboa winning 2-1 (25-27, 25-19, 19-17) in a crazy finish featuring some nervous play by both teams.   Balboa then went on to beat #3 SPVB 2-0 (25-18, 25-22), who earlier beat #5 Adversity South in the all Illinois battle.  

16 Open – Results

While 18s went mostly according to the script, 16s Open was completely unpredictable 🙂

In Quarterfinals, MOD B16 Blue beat AZ Fear 2-0, avenging an earlier loss in the tournament.  Aspire 16 Spiderman beat HPSTL B16 Royal 2-0 while Pulse 16-G beat SASVBC B 16 Jayce and so the Cinderella story finally ended for the Hawaiian team.  In the last quarterfinal, Bay to Bay 16-1 beat GVA Boys 16u Dark Blue.  

In the semis, MOD B16 Blue finally ran out of gas and Aspire used their size to win 2-0 and Pulse continued their great play by defeating Bay to Bay 16-1 2-0.

In the final we got to witness a great match that went to overtime in all three sets as Pulse 16-G prevailed 16-14 in the 3rd set after Aspire missed a serve on a championship point with a 14-13 lead.  Pulse was seeded 10th in the tournament coming in and not many people had them going all the way but they proved everyone wrong (including everybody who voted in our bracket pick-em).  As recently as 2 weeks ago at the SoCal Cup Showcase they made it to gold only to lose to to Coast 16s and interestingly their only loss at nationals was to Coast who unfortunately did not make the Gold bracket.  Pulse played amazing over the last 3 days and deserved every bit of this victory!

Thats it for now, we will have a lot more Nationals coverage over the next few days and list out some players of the tournament, etc… but wanted to thank you all and congrats to all the Wave 1 Winners!

12 Club – GVA Boys 11u Dark Blue (PU)

12 Open – MB Surf ASICS 12’s 1 (SC)

13 Club – PREVA 13-1 Carlos Rivera (PU)

13 Open – Bay to Bay 13-1 (NC)

16 Club – Balboa Bay 16Red (SC)

16 Select – SMBC Shack 16 Molten (SC)

16 Elite – OCVC 16-1 (SC)

16 Premier – LVC 16BLACK (WE)

16 Open – Pulse 16-G (SC)

18 Club – Pilipa’a 18’s (MK)

18 Select – SPVB B18 Bravo (GL)

18 Elite – PEVA Boys 18 Elite (KE)

18 Premier – Niagara Frontier 18 Gold (WE)

18 Open – MB Surf ASICS 18’s 1 (SC)

Follow the nationals here!

AAU Nationals Wave 1 – Orlando, Florida – Schedule | Watch 

For more data on boys’ nationals please take a look at this spreadsheet: 

Boys National Championships DataSheet