On the heels of their historic 16 Open National Championship at AAU Boys’ Junior National Championships in July, Boys 17 Black enters the 2024-2025 club season ranked #1 in the country. They kicked off their season at the newly established JVA Brickyard Battle in Indianapolis. The event drew teams from all over the US including perrenial powerhouse clubs from northern and southern California and Florida.
Boys 17 Black dominated day 1 pool play with a 3-0 (6-0) record while holding opponents to under 20 points. Day 2 began the same way with two wins over SMASH Boys 17-1 and MVP 17 Black. In the final match in day 2 pool play versus NCVC 17-Mizuno (northern California) Triangle battled to secure the first set 27-25 and finished the match with a strong second set (25-20).
Gold bracket play on Monday would be intense. The quarterfinals match vs. RUSH 17 Red (Arizona) would give Boys 17 Black their first set loss (23-25) but the squad rallied to win the match in a tight 3 set battle (23-25, 25-20, 15-13). In the semi-finals Boys 17 Black would face HPSTL B17 Royal (St. Louis, MO). The team lost the second set but prevailed in three to advance to the championship (20-25, 26-24, 15-11).
The championship match would be against Winter Park Boys 17 Armour Black (Florida), a team that Boys 17 Black had faced twice last season with split results. The match would not disappoint. Triangle dropped the first set 23-25 but stormed back to win the second set 25-14. In the third set, Triangle found themselves down 4-11 but an attacking error by WPVC opened the door for Triangle to come back.
After a Thomas Demps kill followed by Lev Marushevskyi’s overpass kill the team battled behind Wade Coppedge’s outstanding serving. A kill by Branson Liquorie brought the score to 10-12. Despite strong play the Triangle team faced match point at 11-14. Never giving up the team rallied behind a Thomas Demps kill and one by Nolan Jones to the deep back corner. Thomas Demps rattled off his first ace to tie the score 14-14. Two more back-to-back aces by Demps would secure the championship.
The members of Triangle Boys 17 Black are: