I know there's a couple of kids from WPIALS on here, so what do you think is going to happen this year?
Can FC still repeat without their amazing setter? Will NA be able to do it with probably one of its youngest teams? What about Norwin? Hempfield? Will there be any suprise teams?

fc will be alright.
i think seneca will be better.
na will be good... really good serve recieve and a few solid hitters.. and a good setter.
norwin wont be good...

vballkid13 who are u?

Hey Micah what's up its Juan from the 17s...

I think the teams from the north section (fc, na, sv) and hempfield will be the top four. penn hills, along with shaler and maybe some others, will be solid, but i think ph's lack of a middle presence and experience will do them in.

fc just needs to develop some team chemistry, but once they do they will very solid. yes they lose their setter, but kevin hutchings and i will pick up the slack and run an offense.

these next two weeks have plenty of scrimmages, and after them it will be much easier to weigh out some solid predictions...

hey whats up its wappler man.

i think penn hills will be good this year with micah and sparks. who is going to set?

and juan i heard k hutch is setting really well? is he running a 5-1?

oh so penn hills will be good right?

haha justins hands are not good at all. he is probably playing outside for them. FCs passing should be good with justin and juan.

seneca will also be good this year.. they have a good setter and 3 strong hitters..

hahaha no justin has awful hands. what we may do is run a 6-2 with me and kev, but he has been setting well so he may just go 5-1. well try some stuff out at the scrimmages and see what works.

haha yeah na scrimmages fc next weekend. na should dominate fc. especially if they run a 5-1 cuase they will basically have no right side block. and if juan sets then they will have one less hitter.

and juan did taylor not make the team?

i disagree, since john wappler is by far the worst passer on the planet and averages a 0.1
haha

taylor made the team i think, but has showed up to only one practice...so basically i have no idea whether or not hes playing. that doesnt matter though, because quinn has been lighting it up (no joke).

also is the scrimmage at na, or at like pt or derry?

its at na...

what do you think the top ten will be for AAA?
give me your top ten in order

1. Fox Chapel (you'll see...)
2. Seneca Valley (their experience/team chemistry is valuable, and they have the talent to do well)
3. Hempfield (sunder and dvorsky are sweet, and they have excellent ball control
4. North Allegheny (have loads of talent with wappler, skarupa, semler, etc., but their passing and lack of experience could be their downfall)
5. Penn Hills (talented on the outside, i can see them playing in late may)
6. Upper St. Clair (issues with passing, setting, but they have some weapons)
7. Plum (larko is pretty good, and they have some decent returning arms)
8. Bethel Park (setter = sweet buttery nectar)
9. Shaler (riley and tom are two hitters to be reckoned with)
10. Norwin (tyler will lead this team that features little ferragonia and that other outside that skies)

very tentative

hmm baldwin graduated their two studs (swauger/rampolla) and both their outsides. i cant see them doing much this year. bethel park, with their very good setter, and usc, with tj and petrini, should be the two okay teams to come out of that section.

1. North Allegheny.. i will probably end up passing half the court.. but we will have good setting with semler.. and if we can run skarupa everytime well be unstopable... nicklas jj and nolan will all get kills too.
2. Seneca Valley.. they have been playing together forever.. good outsides.. follett and emling. follett will deff get first team all wpial and the beebes will be good too.
3. FC.. they might be lacking with setting.. but their passing should be money and they have good hitters (juan, justin, seth, gary) i think even quinn and rios can contribute...
4. Hempfield.. Dyvorsky and Sunder but do they have a setter?
5. Shaler.. they have basically their whole team from last year so they should be good.
6. Penn Hills.. Micah and sparks will be good.. but they might be lacking everywhere else.they shoul still be good tho.
7. Norwin.. decent setter and outsides
8. Plum.. good setter.. does he have anything else? larko will probably just dump every other play.. as usual.
9. Upper St Clair.. decent hitters.. no setter.. and their passing wont be that good.
10. Bethel Park? apparently juan thinks they will be good.. they have an okay setter.. nothing special but they should be okay

isnt one of plums starting middles returning. also that kid with the headband (varsity serving specialist) wasn't bad.

So The big question is which of the top five will not be at states:???

Without a doubt:

North AL
Fox chapel
Hempfield
Seneca valley

Are your top four.

I dont think any of the other teams out there will contend against them for the three state bids that your division gets this year. So which team is going to come up short? Thats a tough district this year.. In fact that could be tighter then the D3 division.

Maybe they should take a bid away from D12 " Back yard ball" And make the 4th place team from D7 and the 4th place team from D3 play one another to see who moves on for another state bid!!!! Makes sense to me!!

The 3 teams that should get to states are..
North Allegheny
Seneca Valley
Fox Chapel


but it is a tight race between those 4... and considering that FC lost their setter which will hurt them tremendously.. and Seneca's best outside (follett) broke his hand and is missing their first few matches.. everything is up in the air. and the first match of sections is FC vs Seneca.. and follett will be out for that.. so i think FC might pull out a win there..

and when playoffs come around some teams are going to be getting some bad seeds.. because the top 3 teams (NA,FC,SV) are all in the same section. and only 4 teams from each section make playoffs.. so two of the top 3 teams may end up playing each other before the semi finals...

lets just wait and see what happens. and then talk trash near playoffs. i'm stayin out of this i'll be like a silent giant. hahaha

i dont know.. im assuming section play will have something to do with it.. and i think the section with NA FC and SV has to the strongest.. and one of those teams will end up taking third.. or 4th if shaler magically gets good..which cant help their seeding for playoffs.

and skarupa your an idiot nobody was talking trash

First of all, yes jbvb22, that makes perfect sense. D3 and D7 are the two most competitive districts in the state with the most talent, and should be represented fairly.

Second of all, FC has a scrimmage tomorrow with Norwin, Shaler, Central, and OLSH, so the league will finally be able to see how this team functions without their premier setter. What other scrimmages are happening during the week? Also, regardless of setting, FC will have ridiculous ball control (as always w/ Coach Phil) and in my book that is much more important than anything in the game.

Thirdly, the top four teams out of each section qualify for playoffs. However, their place in the section does not give them an automatic seed. The WPIAL seeding committee gets together one day and places teams on the bracket by their performance overall, regardless of section. For example, two years ago plum, penn hills, and fox chapel all got top 6 seeds, despite being in the same section of a 6 section league. This being said, those top 4 teams will most likely be on the top (oh yeah FC's last match of the season is against hempfield, so that should have a big impact on seeding).

Oh yeah...shut up skarupa





Oh yeah Wappler, when did follet break his hand?? how long is he out for?

yeah were going tomorrow.. is it after school?

yeah follett broke his hand at regionals.. he hit a ref stand at the end of the match cause they lost.. stupid move. he will be back in early april.. he will be out for your match.. and back just in time for when we play seneca.

and juan sounds like u have a tough scrimmage today..

wow that scrimmage was awful.. we played out starters for like the first 15 minutes.. i dont even know who won.

juan how was the FC scrimmage?

nothing from olsh or central. shaler didnt look to impressive, but for some reason they set riley like once. if they set him more they will have atleast modest success. i was surprised with norwin though. tyler has really improved, and so has little ferragonia. they are a scrappy team, and they have some guns (ferragonia, one of their middles whom i dont know).

as for fc, we didnt really play to full potential at all. the whole time we were messing around with lineups, putting pretty much everyone pretty much everywhere. we still arent sure of what we will have, but after the scrimmage this saturday id say that we would be pretty confident of what we are going to do.

also norwin's gym is awful. you can barely see the ball on all the courts except the center one, where the lighting is somewhat not terrible...

is ferragonia actually good? cause i saw him in club and he didnt look that graet.

haha juan what is your best starting line up?


our scrimmage was not that good..

mt lebo was total garbage.. they had trouble getting the ball over the net.. they just picked up a new coach i think.. he was the coach for Pine Richland last year.

penn hills was pretty good.. their passing and outside and rightsides were good.. but it didnt seem like they had a good middle..

and montour was alright.. they have ryan and 2 good outsides.. pekala and some shorter kid who thinks hes huge...

ferragonia is not quite a dominant force, but in the next few years he will be better than his brother. he passes decently and has a good arm swing while getting up. i would say that he is a bit better than zweig (when he is actually playing well).

haha in terms of our best lineup, i honesty cant say. we took down central, olsh, and shaler all with different lineups, and then did a really confusing one against norwin that had coach yelling and calling timeouts. why dont you tell us what you think the best one is after saturday okay wappler haha.

the thing with norwin's gym is the lighting. the side courts are TERRIBLY lighted, but the middle one isnt too bad. so for your match, micah, i think youll be able to adjust a bit and play well.

oh and that outside who thinks hes huge is leithauser right? hes not bad...

he is a sophomore, and im pretty sure he plays up an age group or two.

if our defense is there, and the passes are where they need to be (off the net) then hutch runs a good offense. however im able to get up to some of the passes tighter to the net, and put up a slightly bigger block. in terms of which is clear cut better, i cant say for sure now. and rios has moved up to full time varsity, and has been making a lot of progress. i expect him to get time, but not necessarily a starting job. depending on who we have setting, he has competition for our 2nd middle (quinn, who has been playing well but got hurt today: i dont know if its serious or not). i think he will letter, but he wont pick up a big share of the offense until next season.

wappler has zweig picked it up at all?

to our scrimmage.. yeah lighthouser is the outside from montour..

and na actually didnt play to their potential.. yeah snyder cant connect with skarupa.. he sets him about 2 inches above the net... and skarupa is always up with snyder.. but semler has a better connection with him.

and are u sure i thought matt was a junior?

zweig did terrible all up until today at the end of practice. he is shaky passing but he can put the ball down

im almost positive he is a sophomore, because a kid on fc talked to him and he said both of their starting outsides (including him) were sophomores.

so wait are you guys running a 6-2 with snyder and semler? is snyder hitting, or do you guys have another opposite besides nicklas?

haha no its not really a 6-2.. youll have to see it to understand it. yeah we have alex grega.. hes about as good as nicklas.. cant hit as well but he can block and play defense better.. and both semler and snyder are pretty good at hitting.

when is phil putting pittsburghvolleyball up?

im guessing the shorter rightside is grega, considering nicklas is like 6'3.

both of them play for pitt elit, but im not sure which team or branch (there are so many)!

nicklas is a better hter.. but grega is better all around.

and juan follett plays for like pitt elite north 18s.. with beebes and the seneca team.

and ferragonio plays for like the pitt elite norwin team.. i think? with like tyler warden.

what do u think about this weekends scrimmage?

our scrimmage is NA, FC, Derry and Penn trafford... its at na... im excited for the NA vs FC match..

oh so penn hills isnt coming to the na tournament next weekend? is hempfield?

who do you guys think will win each section?

First of all, yeah pitt elite is always looking for talent. wappler and i played for the keystone allegheny team, which swauger (head of pitt elite) ran. after that i started getting a bunch of emails about pitt elite tryouts and im positive swauger knew i was going united (i dont know if you got them too wappler).

And at this weekend's scrimmage, it will pretty much just be fc and na. penn traffor has maybe one or two somewhat okay hitters, but they are awful. derry was all dixon last year, and hes gone. i think the scrimmage will give us a chance to establish a more clear cut lineup, so we can have a better idea of what we are doing heading into next weekend's tournament.

Hempfield is a very good team Micah, but you could probably beat them. if you stop sunder (which will be very very tough) and force them to feed dvorsky (mvp candidate) he could not be able to take over the match without sunder's help. also they play very very very good defense, and they have some very good coaching (one of their coaches won 13 state titles in a row with norwins girls volleyball team).

joe sunder is their huge middle, and drew dvorsky is their awesome outside. i think their setter is okay this year (was he the one on pitt elite with vrooman and goodell wappler?), and, like I said, the level of coaching gives anyone on the team potential to step up and contribute to their success.

haha yeah the pitt elite kids/ coaches did try to get me to play for them..

and yeah dyvorsky played for the team with vrooman and goodell.

but sunder didnt because he played basketball. he should have tho cause their second middle was terrible. chubbs?

wasnt scahill their libero?

scahill is setting for central this year. they wont be too dangerous, but they have good coaching so they may develop over the season.

haha yeah with his huge wall on the right side they should be unstoppable.. and their rightside who plays tennis and hits it into the net 9 out of 10 times

haha yeah the kid with the weird ****** serve. they have this one middle who skies though, and if he learns to actually hit the ball he could be dangerous.


hmm i should probably head to bed so i can be nice and awake while fc destroys na tomorrow haha...good luck

the scrimmage today was...interesting. im pretty sure both na and fc dominated derry/pt, but when fc played na, the tigers put up very well formed blocks and dug well while the foxes could not pass anything. it got ugly. hopefully well be able to recover the passing that was once our strong point before next weekend...

jj played better than i have ever seen him play

yeah dude we both dominated derry and pt..

but as far as our match.. we passed really well.. haha juan you are easy btw.. we also played good D and hit okay. the serving wasnt anything special and FC still couldnt pass near target. and i think you guys are lacking at some positions..

haha i like when grant tried to pass a one man serve recieve and jj aced him like 4 times.. i thought u had to be good at passing to pass with one person

haha all i have to say is that we had an off day. our passing is generally our strength, so just be prepared...

next weekend, we definitely wont be a pushover

haha okay we will be waiting.. and when do the pools get announced?

who do you think are the top 5 players at each position? double and triple A

i have no idea about the pools...its YOUR tournament after all haha

considering i play most positions on the court, and so that i remove any bias, i wont include myself in any list

Setters:
1. Ryan Williams (Montour)
2. Mike Larko (Plum)
3. Dan Beebe (SV)
4. Tyler Warden (Norwin)
5. (tie) Bethel Park Setter
5. (tie) Steve semler

Middles:
1. John Skarupa (NA)
2. Joe Sunder (Hempfield)
3. Eric Garrison (FC)
4. Tom Petrini (USC)
5. Hoffman (SV)

Outsides:
1. Dan Follett (SV)
2. Drew Dvorsky (Hempfield)
3. Seth Katich (FC)
4. Mike McLaughlin (Hopewell)
5. Brian Riley (Shaler)
5. JJ Leroux, Micah Larson (3 way tie)

Rightsides:
1. Adam Beebe (SV)
2. Jake Barone (PR)...he may be hitting leftside i think, but hes good enough to be up here
3. Patrick Sparks (PH)
4. Kyle Richless (FC)
5. Kevin (PR)

Liberos:
1. John Wappler (NA)
2. Grant Mitchell (FC)
3. Dave Andreaggi (USC)...i think he may be setting, but not sure
4. Shaun (Latrobe)
5. Pekala (Montour)...he is hitting outside, but hes a damn good libero

okay haha not too bad...

setters:
1. Ryan Williams - Montour
2. Dan Beebe - Seneca Valley
3. Mike Larko - Plum
4. Steve Semler - NA
5. the last setter is up in the air.. noone really stand out.. if juan is setting it could be him or that kid from bethel.

middles:
1. John Skarupa - NA
2. Eric Garrison - FC
3. Joe Sunder - Hempfield
4. Justin Hoffman - SV
5. i would say either the middle from baldwin on tom petrini. its a toss up

outsides:
1. Dan Follett - SV
2. Chris Vrooman - Ambridge
3. Mike Mclaughlin - Hopewell
4. Seth Katich - FC - solid passer and server.. his hitting can be weak at times
5. Drew Dyvorsky - Hempfield
.. also JJ should be up there and Micah

rightsides:
1. Adam Beebe - SV
2. Juan - depending if your hitting or setting front row
3. Jake Barone - PR
4. Charlie Goodell - Ambridge
5. Sparks - PH


i agree with the liberos..

and some other players that might deserve to be up there..
TJ from USC
Justin Mroz - FC
Steve Nicklas or Alex Grega - NA
and even snyder from NA is a pretty good setter
and tyler warden from Norwin
and Brian Riley From Shaler

oh yeah i forgot about goodell...he definitely merits being on that list. if jj keeps up the way hes playing though he will have climbed a lot higher up that outside hitter list by the end of the season though...

wappler let me know when pools for the na tournament come out.

haha yeah i think your right..

ill let you know as soon as i know.. how do i even find out?

hmm i dont know i assumed that coach schall would be in charge of all that. how many teams are going? any non wpial teams?

yeah probably some non wpial teams.. the teams that went last year were really solid. it was a good tournament..

last year central york went..

and richland.. the team with the cutoffs.. and they had trouble getting the ball over the net

haha yeah i remember them! they were absolutely terrible. do you know if you guys are coming to our tournament in april?

yeah we are.. for sure.

what other tournaments do you go to?