A few months ago, the players and coaches of the Central Oregon Volleyball Club were not anticipating spending a week of their summer playing volleyball in Las Vegas.

For four days in the first week of July, the squad made up of players from Bend High, Ridgeview, Caldera, Crook County, Sisters and Trinity Lutheran was at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in the USA Volleyball Nationals tournament playing against the top club volleyball teams in the country.

“We went in with no expectations,” said Central Oregon Volleyball Club coach Heidi Wood. “We just wanted to play as a team and compete to our best abilities as a team.”

In the 16-and-under division, Central Oregon finished 41st out of 102 teams, finishing with three wins in nine matches (winning 10 of 24 sets) while competing against teams from California, Nebraska, Minnesota, Texas, Utah, Colorado, Iowa and Texas.

“It is always intimidating playing teams from the Midwest or from Texas,” Wood said. “You’ve never seen them before, you don’t know who their strong hitters are, don’t know who their weak passers are. You are going in blind in these tournaments.”

Although Central Oregon went in without any scouting reports of other teams, the players were ready to compete.

“Going into the first game, I was ready to play,” said Addy Cummings, an incoming junior at Ridgeview, who led the team with 70 digs and 12 aces during the tournament. “I wanted to show that we did deserve that bid and did deserve to go to nationals. I wanted to prove that we were good enough to be there.

“Once we got there, we knew we had to step up our game because these teams are good.”

Central Oregon played in two regional tournaments this past spring to earn a bid to the national tournament. The team played in Spokane in March and Salt Lake City in April, facing teams from across the country. In both tournaments, Central Oregon finished in the top 10, including a fifth-place finish in Salt Lake City. But neither placing gave them a qualifying bid to play in Vegas.

But luck was in Central Oregon’s favor, as it received a wild-card bid for nationals.

“I think everyone was really excited,” said Paige Wood, an incoming sophomore at Crook County who led the team with 79 kills during the tournament. “It is a pretty big deal because we were a wild-card bid team. We got noticed enough to compete nationally.”

After dropping the first match of pool play on the first day of the tournament, Central Oregon had its highlight of the tournament. In its second match, playing against Texas’ United Volleyball Association, Central Oregon rallied to win in three sets, claiming the final two sets after dropping the first one. Making the win all the more impressive, United would go on to place third at the tournament.

“We wanted to finish off with a good day,” Paige Wood said. “But in that game, everyone gave it their all. It was a great experience, we weren’t nervous, we just went out and played our game. It was really cool.”

But after finishing the first day with two wins in its first three matches, Central Oregon dropped its next three matches on the second day. It then notched a win in one of its two matches the following day.

“That is the biggest challenge, is even though the game didn’t go our way we have to bounce back,” Paige Wood said. “We have to play for our team even if you are tired, because it is a team sport.”