Columbia Juniors 18-Black loses 2 at USA Junior Volleyball Nationals

The Columbia Juniors 18-Black squad dropped both of its match Saturday at the the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championships in Dallas.

The Columbia Juniors dropped a 21-25, 25-21, 15-9 match to Alamo Elite (San Antonio) in pool play at the Dallas Convention Center, which has 50 courts set up for the 160 teams — in four divisions — in the tournament.

“We had them beat,” said Columbia coach John Lengphounpraseut. “We were up 9-1 and 16-9 in the second set, but couldn’t hold on. It is a little bit disappointing. We could have been in the top 24 with the win. We made some silly unforced errors, they started running their offense better and our passing wasn’t that good.”

Columbia turned around and lost a 25-21, 25-18 match to the Missouri Mavericks (St. Louis).

“They are one of the better teams we have played in the last two days,” Lengphounpraseut said.

Columbia, 2-3 in tournament play, will have three matches today and more on Monday. They best it can finish is 25th out of the 48 teams in the National Division.

“Comining from the small community that we do, we are having a good showing,” Lengphounpraseut said.

This story was originally published June 29, 2013 at 11:29 PM with the headline "Columbia Juniors 18-Black loses 2 at USA Junior Volleyball Nationals."