Posted: 5/1/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Photo courtesy of the Illinois Men's Club Volleyball Team The Illinois Men's Club Volleyball team poses after its second place finish at the Club National Volleyball Championships in Dallas.

Men's club volleyball has a strong tradition at Illinois, dating back to 1984. But for all three of the program's teams, this season was especially remarkable.

The Blue Team is the Fighting Illini's "A" team and participates in the most tournaments each year. This season, it won its second consecutive Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) Division I title while riding a 35-match winning streak. The title complemented its Big Ten Men's Volleyball Association (BTMVA) regular season and tournament championship victories.

And plans for next season are even more ambitious.

"This year we really focused on our serving and defense," said Doug Burchett, club vice president and captain of the Blue Team. "I would like to see our team become a better 'out of system' team, which means getting kills when we don't have a perfect pass. Otherwise, our goal is to get back to that championship game and win a National Championship."

In Division II play, the Orange (B) Team clinched the MIVA Championship by defeating rival University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and ended its official MIVA season without losing a single game en route to snagging its fifth consecutive MIVA title. The Orange Team also claimed the BTMVA title for its division, as well as the BTMVA tournament championship.

"Our team's biggest accomplishment was the amount of respect that we earned from all the other programs in the country," Orange Team member Brendan Ori said. "It's not easy fielding one really good team, but Illinois' club team has two legit teams, and the (White Team) is not that far behind. It speaks volumes about the amount of talent that we have and the amount of work that we put in."

Both the Blue and Orange teams concluded the season by travelling to Dallas, where they competed in the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) National Volleyball Championships.

The Blue Team competed in D-I and finished second in the gold bracket, losing to Lakeland College in two close games. Meanwhile, Illinois Orange took third in the D-III gold bracket after losing to eventual second-place finishers, UC Berkeley.

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