Spikefest brings a thousand volleyball players to arena - Huntington Herald Dispatch

April 01, 2019 at 09:45PM

HUNTINGTON - Outside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena, robins sing a chorus of spring's return.

This past weekend inside the area was an even louder chorus of spring chirps as officials kept order on 12 courts during the March madness that is West Virginia Spikefest.

For sports fans who like stats, the 16th annual WV Spikefest volleyball tournament featured 96 teams (with nearly 1,000 players and coaches) taking turns battling each other on a grid of 12 volleyball courts from Friday through Sunday.

This year's Spikefest featured travel club volleyball teams of girls ages 14 to 18 from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and all over West Virginia. It is the single largest club volleyball event in West Virginia and the second largest event in the region (Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia). The three-day tournament allows college scouts the chance to watch different players from different states in one venue.

Getting ready to take the court Sunday afternoon, former Marshall University women's volleyball coach Mitch Jacobs, who coaches the locally based River Cities Thunder, said his team appreciates the convenience of a weekend at home - which is not the norm.

"Our club travels all over the Mideast, our 15s will be in St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Louisville, and these guys (their 16-year-olds team) will be in Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and our 18s were in Nashville where they won a national qualifier," Jacobs said. "... So to have a tournament here where they can play and parents can just go home is a great situation for us."

Paul Chinuntdet and Paul Claridades, both of the host club Charleston's Appalachian Volleyball Academy, birthed the massive, multi-day Spikefest tournament that has become a tradition.

Chinuntdet, a now retired coach who once had all six of his starters earn college scholarships, said bringing in the best talent from surrounding states helps all the players level up.

"We created this tournament to bring competition here so local teams have a better feel for what they are going up against," Chinuntdet said. "When you just play within West Virginia, you are playing the same level and don't grow."

While standard one-day tournaments are usually four matches, the super-sized Spikefest has teams playing a minimum of eight matches before the final elimination round in which the winners keep playing.

"They really can be playing all weekend," Chinuntdet said.

Claridades, the coach of the Appalachian Volleyball Academy 18-year-olds and club president, had five teams from ages 12 to 18. He said it has been incredible to see the growth of not only their club but travel club volleyball throughout the region.

They started out as Charleston Volleyball Club in 2001, but changed the name to reflect the regional make-up of the club, which has members from Man to Ripley.

"Since we started, the number of clubs in West Virginia have grown," said Claridades, who has coached at the college and high school levels for years. "We are up to 12 to 14 clubs, and at one point there was only two of us. We are now seeing kids that we coached back in the early 2000s, coming back and being parents and coaches and giving back, so we are now getting that generational progression to it."

Claridades said they also have gotten a crop of top level officials who make Spikefest an annual tradition. One of the officials, Shane White, even sings the National Anthem.

"We usually need about 18 officials, and 10 of these officials have come every year since we started," Claridades said. "We know everybody, and when we get in a pinch they are the first ones to help courtside. They know the operation, and they help it go a lot smoother in the trenches. And we have a lot of the same vendors and groups that help like Special Olympics, so it is becoming a tradition and an event in a lot of ways."

The Pauls said that family feel also extends to just the general all-hands-on-deck helpfulness of the arena, the city and the Cabell Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau. This year they received a small army of volunteers from Recovery Point to help with both the Thursday assembly and Sunday disassembly of the 12 portable courts that were shipped in for the tournament.

"If you think about it, we are one of the few events that brings in so many people from out of the area," Chinuntdet said. "We are bringing in families from out of state, and they need to stay Friday and Saturday nights."

Claridades added that with nearly all of the 1,000 kids traveling with family, the economic impact is felt around the Tri-State.

"The insertion into the economy for this weekend is amazing, and it is not just Huntington, but Ironton and Ashland are also picking up a lot of hotels and so also picking up some of the food, but downtown Huntington gets the biggest effect," Claridades said.

That wave of economic impact from out-of-town youth sports teams is not lost on the Cabell Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has put on a full-court press in recent years to reel in state and regional tournaments that include cheerleading, cross-country, tennis, wrestling, motocross, soccer, baseball, professional catfishing and archery.

The West Virginia Archery in Schools state tournament was held Saturday at the Chris Cline Athletic Complex on Marshall University's campus, bringing nearly 600 archers and well over 1,000 people to campus for the one-day competition. The February regional qualifier in archery drew 1,400 archers at the Cline trying to shoot their way to state.

Anna Adkins, the sales manager for Cabell-Huntington CVB, knows the impact of youth sports. She happens to be a former River Cities Gymnastics and Cheerleading Center coach who helped lead several teams to multiple national titles.

Adkins and the CVB team recently secured the WVSSAC State Cheerleading Championships for 2019, 2020, 2021 and an option for 2022 at the Cam Henderson Center in early December.

That happens to be one of just 15 youth sports tournaments or championships that will be held in Huntington and Cabell County this year.

This summer, Barboursville teams up with Dunbar's new Shawnee Sports Complex to host both the US Youth Soccer East Region NCS, which brings 250 teams to the area June 27-July 2, as well as the US Youth Soccer Presidents Cup, which brings in 100 teams June 14-17. That tournament has also been secured for 2020.

Here's a look at what's on deck at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena: April 6, Double Dare Live; April 13, Jeff Dunham - Passively Aggressive Tour; May 4, Justin Moore and Dillon Carmichael; May 13, Slayer and Lamb of God; July 12, Twins of Evil Rob Zombie and Marilyn Hell Never Dies Tour; Sept. 27, DISTURBED Evolution Tour with In This Moment; Oct. 4-5, Professional Bull Riders Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour. Go online at https://bigsandyarena.com.