America's Center in downtown St. Louis was home to a lot of good volleyball in the past 10 days. Boys and girls teams from all over the country gathered on Gateway's home court to battle it out in what turned out to be some awesome competition. Between the girls' President's Day Classic, the boys' Dennis Lafata Gateway Festival, and the 18s girls' Gateway Bid Event, there were 52 High Performance teams that participated in the tournaments. Highlights among those teams were the 7 medals earned, bids #7&8 secured, and the overall 0.567 winning percentage. 

First off, let's brag about our boys. This is always a huge weekend as it is the only local bid event and the last time for the high school age groups to take the court before getting into their high school seasons. With bids already secured by 18 Royal, 18 Orange, 17 Orange, 16 Royal, and 14 Royal it was a ton of fun watching 17 Royal and 16 Orange have dominant weekends to join the group. We now have 7 boys teams that will be heading to Dallas for the BJNC to compete with the best teams in the country. To top off the Gateway Festival we got to see 17 Orange and 14 Illinois on the stand medaling with those teams getting 1st and 2nd respectively. Congrats to all teams on an awesome weekend.

Now for our girls. The President's Day Classic was the usual three days of competitive play and as always our High Performance girls played some of the best volleyball in the entire convention center. Our top teams had an amazing .742 winning percentage and beat some pretty incredible teams. The girls ended the weekend with 4 teams on the medal stand for their prospective divisions: 12 Royal (1st), 14 Select (1st), 17 Royal (2nd), and 12 Orange (3rd). Still waiting to hear about all-tournament teams but we are expecting to have some girls on those lists. This is always an exciting tournament to kick off the bid season for our girls and we are really excited about the next couple months!