VolleyFX Mantra captured their second gold medal of the season by outlasting a pool of 40 teams in the 16s division at the VFX Winter Challenge tournament the weekend of March 1-2.  They split their first match of the tournament against Niagara Frontier 16 Blue (25-22, 20-25), which dropped them to 2nd in the pool as a result of the head-to-head point differential tiebreaker.   However, they went undefeated the rest of the tournament, including a 25-18, 25-16 rematch against NF 16 Blue in the semi-final round of the Gold Bracket.  Their road to gold also included wins over NF 16 Red in the quarterfinals (25-17, 25-22), where they rallied from a 15-7 deficit in the second game, and a strong Atlantic Valley 16N team in the finals (25-15, 25-17). 

Mantra’s first gold of the season came against a 24-team field at the NFVB January Jumpstart tournament.  In other tournaments, Mantra placed 9th (T) out of 52 teams at the MLK tournament in Philadelphia, 9th (T) out of 58 teams at the Early Bird tournament in Columbus, and 4th out of 15 teams in the 18s division of the VFX Hocus Pocus Invitational. 

Congratulations to the entire Mantra team, along with head coach C.J. Denk and assistant coach Christie Gustafson.  Let’s hope they can carry the momentum into the MEQ National Qualifier in Indianapolis next weekend. 

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