A new girls volleyball club team — whose home court is in Battery Park City — won their first regional tournament this past weekend.
The Asphalt Green Wave Volleyball Team, which formed last year, beat Sideout Sports from Fairfield, N.J. at an all-day tournament on Sat., Feb. 21 in Peekskill, N.Y.
It was the first regional tournament the 14U team had attended, said Ben Freeman, associate director of sports for Asphalt Green, a nonprofit that provides sport instruction and programs for children and adults.
Twelve teams of teens 14 and under from the New York and New Jersey area competed that day in the Garden Empire Volleyball Association tournament. The teams were broken into three groups of four and the top two moved forward.
Asphalt Green, made up mostly of players from Tribeca and Battery Park City, won two of their three games in the first round. They lost to Sideout Sports and had suffered another loss at Sideout’s hands in Washington, D.C. the previous weekend.
“The girls were really excited” to play them again in the finals, Freeman told Downtown Express.
In the first set, the Asphalt Greens beat Sideout 25 to 11, he said. The girls’ energy was high but Sideout came back to beat them 25 to 23 in the second set. The girls regained their composure in the third set, which is played to 15 points, to win it 15 to 7 and nab the victory.
“It was a great team effort,” said Freeman.
The ten-member team is comprised of Julie Schoenmaker, Maia Villalba and Anna Comitini from Tribeca; Jamie Morrison, Zoe Anderson and Cate Albright from Battery Park City; and Sierra Good, Carolyn Kavanagh, Sophie Hart and Olivia Perlman from the Upper West Side.
The team is off to two more tournaments and then will go to the regional playoffs in May. If they win, they will advance to nationals.
The team was started last year, said Freeman, with a 13U and a 15U and then expanded to four this year: 14U, 15U, and two 16 U teams. Tryouts are held in the first week of November. They practice at the Asphalt Green Battery Park City campus at 212 North End Ave.
— DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC
