Gators Serve Up Junior Olympic Volleyball for Bedford

BHS Junior Kate Winkler digs a spike during the Mizuno Boston Volleyball Festival – Image (c) Jeff ‘JHo’ Hoyland, 2017 all rights reserved – Click to view larger image

By Jeff ‘JHo’ Hoyland

On Tuesday, March 21^st Gators Benefit Night 2017 will take place at Bedford’s Flatbread Pizza from 5 PM to 9 PM. You can find more information and enjoy great food

Volleyball is the most popular indoor high school sport for girls and is also the fastest growing sport in the United States in terms of youth participation. Gators Volleyball Club of Bedford is proud to be part of this trend. Gators is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation dedicated to teaching volleyball to local youth through a positive coaching philosophy and state-of-the-art teaching methods.

BHS Sophomore Mallory Ferland bigs a serve for Gators U16 Black during the Mizuno Boston Tournament in March

Bedford Resident, Coach Jim Kelly, prepares Gators U16 Razzamatazz for a match at the Mizuno Boston Volleyball Festival

Gators U17 Black prepares for serves. The team is coached BHS Varsity Volleyball coach Lisa Predaina

Junior Jasmin Yannix serves during Junior Olympic Volleyball at the Mizuno Boston Volleyball Festival at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

Black team prepares for a serve on court 26 of 89 courts at the Mizuno Boston Volleyball Festival

Lisa Predaina, BHS Varsity Coach and Gators U17 Coach, waits quietly in the background as her team returns a serve during the Mizuno Boston Volleyball Festival

Junior Olympic Volleyball in New England has doubled in size over the past 5 years, with about 10,000 athletes participating in various age divisions from U12 to U18. The Mizuno Boston Volleyball Festival is a national qualifying tournament which transformed the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center into a sea of 89 volleyball courts over the first weekend in March with teams from 25 states all competing under one roof.

Frank Gardner, Bedford resident and the Director of Gators Volleyball Club said, “In the past, girls in New England would commonly wait until high school to begin playing volleyball. We now see many more girls in the middle school and elementary school years signing up for our programs. One of the things I am most excited about right now is the new Beginner program we are running during the month April at Lane School specifically designed for 3rd through 5th graders.”

Centered in the Bedford area, Gators Volleyball Club continues to grow, boasting over 120 players from 23 different towns for the 2017 season, with 13 competitive travel teams plus two in-house weekly skills clinics programs. Our athletes range in age from third grade up through twelfth grade, and Bedford features most prominently among our membership, with 22 of our players hailing from Bedford.

Many of our coaches also coach local high school teams, and six of our coaches have coached volleyball for Bedford High School, including Lisa Predaina and Courtney Patel, the current Varsity and Junior Varsity coaches for BHS. Of our 34 coaches and staff, 18 have Bedford roots, either as a resident or a coach at BHS. At Gators Volleyball Club, we look forward to continuing to grow the game right here in Bedford, and enhance Bedford’s reputation as a volleyball town.

“This is a very exciting time for volleyball in New England,” said NERVA Commissioner Dave Peixoto. “Volleyball was invented in Massachusetts, and it’s great to see so many more children in our Region experiencing the joy of playing this great game.” Gators sent ten teams to compete in this ground-breaking tournament.

Volleyball has changed a lot in recent years, and it continues to change. At Gators Volleyball Club, our coaches embrace these changes and eagerly continue to learn the latest developments in the game. This constant quest for learning also affects how we coach. The latest research on how people learn a sport like volleyball tells us that learning is very context-specific and task-specific. This means our coaches know how important it is to make practice activities as “game-like” as possible and to maximize each player’s meaningful interactions with the ball. Most importantly, Gators Volleyball coaches never forget that we are coaching people (not just volleyball players), and our success as coaches is measured in how many of our players come back to play again next year.

Tryouts are in November and teams are formed and start practicing in December. The overall indoor volleyball season runs about 6 months with competitions starting as early as January and end in May. Over the summer, some of our more dedicated athletes take their game outdoors to compete in beach doubles volleyball. Last summer, we competed in beach doubles tournaments almost every weekend. One of our teams even qualified for and competed in USAV’s Junior Beach Tour Nationals in Milwaukee.

To learn more, click the following links – www.nervajuniors.com and www.gatorsvolleyball.com