2018/2019 Volleyball Highlights

This is AMAA’s largest Volleyball season ever with an incredible 9 teams – Tyro (9th & 10th grade), 2 Intermediate Teams (8th grade), Rookie (7th grade), Bantam (6th grade), 2 Novice Teams (5th grade), and 2 PeeWee Teams (grades 4 & under). Our Tyro team, coached by Kerri Fortune and Sal Tartaglione, welcomed 3 new players to round out their 12 player roster. They’ve had a great start to the season with a 7-2 record.


With so many new 8th grade girls in our program, we formed two 8th grade teams this year, the Red Team with 10 girls, 2 of them being new, and the Black Team with 9 girls, 6 of them being new to AMAA, but not new to the sport. Both teams are coached by Kerri Fortune, with the assistance of Eric Keilbach, Henry Correa, John Fratangelo, and Jee King. This is definitely a growing year for our 8th graders who moved into a stronger division this year, and are learning 4-2 and 5-1 rotations.

Both teams have lots of potential! The Rookie team is coached by first time AMAA head coach, Marc Palmieri, who stepped up to coach when the team was in danger of folding. This team of 11 welcomed 3 new players, and they are off to a good start with a 4-2 record.

The Bantam team is once again coach by Ariadna Lopez, with help from Alex Krasovitsky and Frances Wang. This team of 11 welcomed 2 new players this season. The girls have come a long way from last year, with many of them now serving overhand, and the team is working on passing and setting up their teammates to hit. This team has a lot of talent and drive and they’re exciting to watch!
The Novice team, like last year, is split into two teams. The Black team, coached by Kara Keppel, welcomed 2 new players on their 10 person roster. They had a tough start to the season, facing last year’s champion and runner-up, but then strung together some nice wins to get their current record to 8-7. This team which has a ton of individual; talent is going to work on playing as a cohesive team this year, and then they have the potential to really go far! The Red Team welcomed 4 new players on their 11 girl roster. This year they’ll be playing in the South division which means a little more traveling than usual, but they lined up some double-headers to alleviate the commute. They are off to a 3-0 start! Last year’s veterans and this year’s newcomers could learn how to work together to make a super team this season!
The two teams in the PeeWee Division are Red & Black. The Red team is made up of 4th graders and some 3rd graders who played last year. This team of 8 girls coached by first time AMAA head coach Devi Singh, along with Leila Chan and Chandra Brijmohan, welcomes 2 new girls to the team this season. The team started the season 7-2. With returning players and some incredible strong 3rd graders, this is definitely a team to watch for the next few years! Our Black Team is coached by first time coaches Trevor Coleman and Madelyn Higueras and Junior Coach Siarra Brown. These 12 girls have two 3rd graders who played last season, who will help lead the team by example on the court. These kids are eager to learn and for many of them, this is their first organized sports team! The team is young, so they may end up taking their lumps this season, but like their older counterparts on the red team, they will be advance a year or two from now since most of these girls will be playing in this age division for a while. By the time they are actually in 4th grade, this team will be sending their competitors packing!