This past weekend, 24 club volleyball teams from around the Pacific Northwest converged on Sherwood Athletic Center for the All-Star Classic co-hosted by Whitman and Walla Walla University. The tournament was the last Pacific Intercollegiate Volleyball Association event of the season before the conference championships hosted by Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash.

Whitman entered two teams into the tournament. The Whitman A team managed to sweep its three group matches against Eastern Washington University (21-18, 21-16), Western Washington University (21-18, 21-12) and Idaho University (21-8, 21-6) to qualify for the elimination portion of the tournament as the second seed out of 16 teams. However, they were upset in the first round by Heritage (23-25, 26-28) in a closely contested match.

Oregon University won the tournament in dramatic fashion, defeating the ‘Zags in three games after losing their starting middle hitter to a broken ankle in the first game.

Despite the early exit of the Whitman A team in the elimination rounds, it was a much better showing than was expected, especially considering that Whitman, a school of just over 1,400 students, was competing against big NCAA Division I teams such as Gonzaga (more than 7,000 students), the University of Oregon (over 22,000), and Eastern Washington University (upwards of 11,000). Of course it helps that Whitman, despite having a significantly smaller enrollment than the other teams in the tournament, did have one of the tallest teams. Senior Graham Brewer and sophomore Aaron Rosenbaum each stand 6’6″. Further fueling the Whitman team to its great showing was the raucous home crowd that cheered on their fellow students at Sherwood.

“Our team loves to get pumped up and plays with a lot of emotion, so being able to play in front of all of our friends and the really loud crowd that we had out there on Saturday made a big difference,” said sophomore John-Henry Heckendorn, captain and founder of the Whitman men’s club volleyball team.

With the results of the tournament, the Whitman men feel like they can make some noise in the conference championships Feb. 27-28 at Gonzaga University and further establish themselves as a contender in the Pacific Northwest.

At the same time, they are very aware of where their weaknesses lie and what they need to improve in order to keep the trajectory of the less-than-two-year-old club team pointing upwards.

“The team’s progress has been fantastic. We need to get better at playing under pressure in big elimination matches, but that will come with experience. Having players with outside experience like [sophomores] Chase Richards, Greg Safranek and Ryan Smith makes a big difference,” said Heckendorn.

One big step that the Whitman team took this past weekend: aside from its play on the court: was displaying the ability to smoothly host such a large-scale tournament.

Whitman Fitness Facilities Director Michele Hanford, was duely impressed.

“I will say that I was impressed with the tournament from the standpoint of a critical eye of a building director,” Hanford said. “It appeared to be well organized, professionally ran, clean and wonderful. The students seemed to be having a great time, everyone performed well and the building looked great when they were done.”

Whitman men’s club volleyball team is putting in the work and effort to set itself up for long term success much sooner than anyone would have thought possible.