Smoky Mountain Volleyball Academy
News
January, 2024
Happy New Year SMVA! January was a BUSY month for us; highlights and pictures below!
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We established our 14U and 18U competition teams - congratulations girls!
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Mountain Volleyball Club hosted a scrimmage for our 18U team at Tuscola High School on Sunday, 1/14/24. Great showing by both teams, and a big thank you to MVC - we'll be hosting a scrimmage with their 13U team on February 8th from 7:45-8:45 at the Waynesville Rec Center!
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On 1/19/24, we held our Pizza Lunch fundraiser. A HUGE thank you to local business Sauced for supplying pizza, to all our girls for their hard work, and to our donors! This was our most successful fundraiser to date, and we are thankful to everyone who was a part of it!
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The weekend of 1/20-1/21, our 14U and 18U teams competed in their first tournament, the K2 Club Clash in Knoxville, TN. We learned and grew as a team, and had a great time! We're looking forward to our next tournament, the K2 Smoky Mountain Classic on 2/10 and 2/11 at the Sevierville Convention Center!
Fall, 2023
Tryouts have begun! November dates: 11/2, 11/7, 11/9, 11/14, and 11/16 from 6pm-9pm each night. We will begin holding practices with assigned teams in December, and holding 2nd chance skills assessment dates (12/5, 12/7, 12/12, and 12/14) from 6pm-9pm. Tryout pricing will be $100 for November dates, and $80 for December dates. Register for skills assessments on our Join page!
We have formed three competition teams this season in the following age brackets: 14 & Under, 15 & Under, and 18 & Under. We are still searching for a couple more players for each team!
We are planning our first fundraiser for January, 2024! Local restaurant Sauced is making pizza to be delivered by club members. Details to follow!
Happy holidays from SMVA! Several of our new and returning members walked in the Hazelwood parade on 12/3/23!
Off-season 2023
We are in the process of planning and budgeting for the 2023-2024 season. The website will undergo some changes during this time.
We have some definitive information about the new season, and are excited to get started! We will be holding skills assessment sessions in November (dates: 11/2, 11/7, 11/9, 11/14, and 11/16) from 6pm-9pm each night, price TBA. We will begin holding practices with assigned teams in December, and holding 2nd chance skills assessment dates (12/5, 12/7, 12/12, and 12/14) from 6pm-9pm. Tryout pricing will be $100 for November dates, and $80 for December dates. General practices will commence on January 9th, and continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays until April 30th, with a break on 4/9 and 4/11, times TBA based on number of athletes and teams. Register for skills assessments on our Join page!
May, 2023
SMVA finished their first season with a bang! The WCU Volleyball team hosted a special clinic one last time before breaking for the year for all of our athletes, so one last big "thank you" to them, and a huge congratulations to graduating Catamounts! We're excited to support them when they return in the Fall 2023 season!
Our 16U team attended their final tournament, Take the Lake in Mooresville, NC. We're incredibly proud of their accomplishments this year, and they had their best showing of the season and ended on a win! Good luck to all our athletes who are competing on school teams in the Fall, we know you'll do great!
We closed our season with family night, where we had an incredible showing of support by families of our athletes playing together with the club. It was such a hit, we're looking forward to doing them more often in the future. It was an excellent way to end a season, and say thank you for all their support this season. We couldn't have done it without you!
April, 2023
April was another busy month! Our club went to Western Carolina University to support the Catamounts in a scrimmage against Lenoir-Rhyne, and we had a fantastic time watching four exciting games (of which the Cats took three!). Special thanks to Waynesville Recreation Center's Program Supervisor Sam Dunbar for providing us with transportation, as well as WCU Head Coach Karen Glover, Assistant Coaches Taylor Svehla and Ashley Gasaway, and the entire WCU Volleyball Team for setting great examples for our youth athletes to emulate!
Our varsity squad attended TWO tournaments in the month of April - the SAVL Championships in Spartanburg, SC and MoTown MoJo in Morristown, TN. We learned a great deal at both tournaments, and are proud of the progress our team is making. Their hard work is showing on the court! Special thanks to Kyla Wells and Matt Williams for taking photos!
March, 2023
The past month has been an absolute whirlwind! Our 16U Varsity team played their first tournament "Rock N Rally" in Gatlinburg, TN the weekend of 3/11-3/12 (thanks to Amanda Rathbone's Mingo Photography for many photos!!)! Our athletes are excited to continue training and scrimmaging as we work toward SAVL in Spartanburg, SC the first weekend in April, and our remaining tournaments for the season (check our calendar for details).
Our JV squad has also ballooned to nearly 20 players regular players, and we're still accepting new trials and registrations! Both our Varsity and JV squad are looking forward to supporting the WCU Catamounts team at home on Wednesday, April 19th at 7pm.
February, 2023
We had an absolutely incredible turnout in the month of January, with nearly 25 registered members of the club and nearly 35 athletes that have attended our clinics. We've had to pivot our program a bit to serve our athletes to our fullest capacity; our letter about the future direction of the club can be found here. At this time, we are closing registrations for our 16U varsity team. We are still accepting new registrations with our JV squad; Please contact us via email if you are interested in joining our program!
We were lucky enough to have the WCU Volleyball team volunteer their time to train our students for one week during February. We are incredibly grateful to the athletes and their coaches who made this possible! We had fun learning and growing as a team, and hope to collaborate again soon!
January, 2023
Happy New Year!! Somehow we got everything done before the holidays, and Smoky Mountain Volleyball Academy OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED on January 1st! We held our first week of practice, and have already rostered 27 (!!) players with most in attendance at least one day in our first week. The ice breakers are over, and we can already tell that the girls are working hard, improving by leaps and bounds, and starting to bond. We've got a well-formed group of beginners and advanced players that are finding their rhythm, and we're tuning our workouts for each group so that they get the most out of their time in the gym. Our first club fundraiser is on January 20th at Boojum Brewing Taproom's downstairs venue "The Gem" from 6-7:30 pm, and we're incredibly thankful for the outpouring of support from the community to get this program off the ground. We couldn't have done it without you! UPDATE: A HUGE thank you to everyone who came out and supported the club - we raised $443 which will go toward equipment, rent, and offsetting the cost of uniforms!
December, 2022
We welcomed some of our first registered members to the Smoky Mountain Volleyball Academy! We got approval to distribute our flyers to local schools, and got the word out about the club at the local parade with volleyball miniatures and handouts (thanks for the shoutout Amanda Williams Real Estate!). We're all set to sign the paperwork for gym time, open a bank account, and file with the IRS before the holiday and the season begins!
November, 2022
Big month for Smoky Mountain Volleyball Academy! We filed our articles of incorporation with the state of North Carolina, our logo was finalized, our website was launched, our coaches completed their training, and we became an officially recognized club by USA Volleyball. We had a great deal of success and support thanks to local businesses, and will continue to hold fundraisers to get the club off the ground.
