The Nansemond Volleyball Club 14-Blue team has a history of competing and doing well in divisions with teams featuring older girls.

This past weekend, the NVC team of 13- and 14-year-old girls found out how it does at a regional tournament against squads in its own age division.

The team of girls from Nansemond-Suffolk Academy, StoneBridge School and Smithfield High School went 5-0 on Saturday in Richmond to win the 14-year-olds division of an Old Dominion Regional Tournament.

This was the first time 14-Blue has won a regional tournament, and the local girls did it without dropping a set or allowing any team to finish with more than 16 points in a set.

“They did amazing,” NVC 14-Blue coach Robyn Ross said. “I was telling the girls at the beginning of the tournament that we might not play as good of teams as we normally do in the 15s bracket but that it would be a great opportunity for us to work on some of the skills that we don’t get to work on when we’re just trying to survive against some of the bigger 15s teams.”

Ross noted that the best element of the day was that she did not even once have to tell her girls to stop playing down to the level of the other team, which superior teams are often prone to do.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a team where I didn’t have to say something about that when we were playing a team that wasn’t quite as good as we were,” she said.

The first three matches of the day for 14-Blue were in pool play, and to make the matches go more quickly, these matches started with a score of 6-6.

The Nansemond Volleyball Club team defeated the Hampton Roads Juniors 14 State team 25-7, 25-11, 25-7, then topped the Charlottesville Area Volleyball Club 14 Navy Storm team 25-14, 25-13, 25-11.

Closing out pool play, the local girls won 25-11, 25-11, 25-10 against North Mountain Attack.

Next, 14-Blue defeated SERV 14 Black by the following scores: 25-11, 25-16.

In the final, which Ross said was her team’s best match, the NVC squad won 25-12, 25-10 against Outbreak 14 Black.

In its last tournament, 14-Blue struggled with errors and ball control. But the team showed clear improvement in both areas this past weekend, including having no serve receive errors in some of its matches and only one in the final.

“The biggest difference between playing against 14s instead of 15s was that the blockers weren’t as good, so my girls just had a great hitting day, all day,” Ross said. “Not only were we hitting great shots, but we were also not hitting poor shots.”

Liz Reese of StoneBridge had 37 kills, 42 digs and 11 aces on the day, Addison Greene of NSA had 23 kills, 35 digs and 12 aces and Livian Matthews of NSA had 23 kills, 28 aces and 10 digs.

“Livian had the most kills that she’s ever had in a tournament,” Ross said. “She had a great day.”

Matthews also recorded 20 of her 28 aces in a single match, which is a Nansemond Volleyball Club record.

StoneBridge’s Rachel Wingfield orchestrated things nicely on offense at setter, handing out 102 assists for the day. She also produced a career-high 15 aces to go with five kills and five digs.

NSA’s Rylee Bono piled up 40 digs to go with 11 aces.

“Everybody at some point during the day did something that was the best that they had ever done that skill, whether it was serving or hitting,” Ross said.

The NVC 14-Blue team has two tournaments left on its schedule. One is a two-day event in Williamsburg and the other is the regional championships. Both tourneys come near the end of April.